BS in Architectural Studies / MS in Historic Preservation

The 4+1 Accelerated Dual Degree option in the BS in Architectural Studies program allows students to quickly advance to professional credentials by integrating undergraduate and graduate coursework. Students pursuing this path can specialize in Historic Preservation by taking four graduate and four undergraduate courses in preservation. By sub-matriculating into the master's program, students complete 24 credits of foundational coursework in the “Documentation and Research” track, which gives them advanced standing in the master's program. Upon completing their bachelor's degree, students need only one additional year of full-time study to fulfill the remaining requirements for the MS in Historic Preservation. This streamlined approach enables students to efficiently progress from their undergraduate studies to obtaining a master's degree in Historic Preservation. 

The MS in Historic Preservation equips graduates with the skills, knowledge and experience to address pressing environmental and community-based challenges. The program foregrounds the intersections among preservation, sustainable design and urbanism, focusing on the adaptive reuse of historic structures, preservation strategies applied to the revitalization of our cities and the preservation of modern buildings and sites, the next preservation frontier. Students use new and emerging digital technologies, part of the Historic Preservationist toolkit, to manage, document, conserve and interpret historic culturally significant structures and places.

Preservationists work as architectural historians, archivists, preservation planners, city planners, downtown/Main Street development specialists, historic site curators, restoration project managers, material conservators and private preservation consultants. Preservationists contribute expertise to interdisciplinary teams in architecture and design firms; local, state and federal government agencies; and in preservation advocacy and nonprofit organizations. Come to Philadelphia — the first UNESCO World Heritage City in America — and imagine the future by preserving the past.

Contact Suzanne Singletary for more information.

Undergraduate curriculum follows the BS in Architectural Studies Curriculum.

Historic Preservation Curriculum Taken During First Four Years

• Issues In Contemporary Preservation
• Uncovering the Past: Tools, Methods, and Strategies
• Architectural Forensics & Documentation
• Building Conservation & Assessment
• Restoration & Rehabilitation of Modernist Buildings
• American Architecture
• Vernacular Architecture
• Principles and Methods of Sustainable Design
• Architectural Studies Capstone

+25 remaining credits from the MS in Historic Preservation curriculum

• Conservation of Historic Building Interiors
• Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Adaptive Reuse and Urban Revitalization
• Graduate Elective
• Graduate Elective
• Graduate Elective
• Thesis Preparation
• Preservation Thesis

Elective Options:

• Internship
• Independent Study
• Architectural Photography: Documentation
• Preservation Economics
•  9 credit graduate concentration: Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Interior Architecture, Real Estate Development, Geodesign
• Study Away—Anhalt University, Dessau, Modernism focus, 9 credits