In the last year, the UVA School of Architecture has lost faculty members and its dean, but yesterday, President John Casteen announced the appointment of Kim Tanzer as the school’s new leader.
Tanzer, who currently teaches at the University of Florida, succeeds Karen Van Lengen, who will step down after serving as dean for 10 years.
“I am very pleased with the search committee,” Casteen told C-VILLE. “Karen Van Lengen started the school on a very progressive agenda in the direction of study having to do with sustainability, moral and ethical aspects of architecture … what we are looking for in Dean Tanzer is the consolidation of those strengths.”
Tanzer has received local and national awards for her community-based architecture and service, and, as Dean will be responsible for a laundry list of new assignments: the creation of centers for interdisciplinary research, the introduction of a Ph.D. program, which, Tanzer said “I hope will also some way allow us to take advantage of a great strength of the school, which is its design capabilities;” the internalization of the school; and, finally, the expansion of the understanding of the linkage of education and architectural space.
“Utilizing the Jeffersonian legacy in the 21 century,” said Tanzer, “I think will be really important, and from my perspective that means telling the story in a way that’s pertinent for those of us here now, reflecting on what Thomas Jefferson did during his time and how he took ideas of Palladio and other ideas of the Enlightment and moved them into this unsettled world.”
Tanzer will begin her term on July 1.
UVA President John Casteen introduced the newly appointed Dean of the School of Architecture Kim Tanzer.
