MIT named world's top architecture school 2017, for third year
15/03/2017.
QS University Rankings
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken the number one spot as world's leading architecture school for the third year running, according to new global rankings.
El Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts, conocido como el MIT, ha vuelto a quedar enprimer lugar, como la escuela de arquitectura líder en el mundo por tercer año consecutivo, según los nuevos rankings mundiales.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Architecture
MIT Media Lab (E14), 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
ScanLAB Projects. The Bartlett Summer Show 2015. Image courtesy of ScanLAB.
Delft University, Faculty of Architecture.
Michael Bierut of Pentagram designed MIT Media Lab's new logo. Each of the 23 research groups inside the Media Lab has its own logo, derived from the letters in its name. Image @ Pentagram
The US institute topped the leaderboard of architecture schools in the QS University Rankings, beating the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Delft University of Technology, which placed second and third respectively.
Gaining 98 points for architecture, MIT also beat its scores in previous years of 97.3 points in 2016 and the 96.5 points in 2015.
The first Spanish school in this ranking is the ETSA of Barcelona of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, occupies the 26th position, which represents a slight recovery with respect to the last year that occupied the 29 and not so much with respect to 2015 that was in the 22.
The second Spanish school a long way away is the ETSA of Madrid occupies position 71, which is a slight setback compared to last year that occupied the 70 and the same with respect to 2015 that was in 71.
Institutions are ranked on their reputation among academics and employers, the number of international students and staff, the ratio of faculty members to students, and the number of citations referencing work by in research papers published within the last year.
Does this mean that these are the best schools? A difficult question to answer.
The ranking values the seniority of the postgraduate researchers, which harms notably to the young schools. That is to say, MIT talks about that there were formed architects like Alvar Aalto, Buckminster Fuller, Louis Khan and Kenzo Tange. But were the current best architects formed? Obviously in most cases not. MIT is an exceptional school of architecture. However, when a young architect wants to know where he can be better trained, the parameters are much more complex and in some cases diametrically opposed, to those of a mere ranking - at least in the early stages.
This marks the seventh edition of the QS University Rankings, which doubled its list this year to include the best 200 universities for studying architecture.
