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These days architecture is both a weapon and a victim of intolerance. Historic buildings are destroyed for what they symbolize, and there are calls for the building of walls and the construction of refugee cities. These actions are symptoms of the global preoccupation with the fear of others and the attempt to keep people “out.” The Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) community rejects these injustices and has built the architecture department on the principle that the purpose of architecture is to support the social good.
This spring, graduate student Marian Petison from the MassArt M.Arch program won the Gensler Diversity Scholarship Award. As the first prize winner, Marian spent most of the summer interning at Gensler, gaining professional experience in a firm where engaging other cultures is part of their design process. MassArt is particularly proud of her achievement because the College has a long history of working for social change. In fact, the school was launched back in 1873 as the first public art college for the express purpose of training students to draw, so they could go on to schools of engineering with the same level of skill as students from private colleges. It was open to women from day one and graduated the woman who would go on to become the first registered female architect in the country.
