Dear Students,

Established in 2020, our Faculty will be accepting students for the first time into the English-language program of the Department of Architecture for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Our young faculty stands out with its unique values, Marmara University's long-standing history and strong institutional structure, the experienced and dynamic faculty members of the Architecture and Industrial Design Departments within the Faculty, and its strong academic staff, as well as the high-quality and rich educational facilities woven with the historical, cultural, and natural features of the Mehmet Genç Campus. In its approach to education, it emphasizes the balance between theory and practice, the unity of academia and industry, and the cultivation of professionals with strong ethical values, alongside the use of ancient professional knowledge and contemporary information and technologies.

Although our faculty is newly established, it has been running Architecture (English), Architecture (Turkish), and Interior Architecture and Environmental Design (Turkish) programs semi-passively and has graduated students to date. Following a fundamental change in 2024, a completely new structure was adopted for the 2024-2025 academic year. Accordingly, the Department of Architecture will begin its educational activities in September 2024 by welcoming its first students.

Since its inception, we have been strengthened by the intellectual environment we strive to foster in the studios that form the backbone of education in design faculties, as well as by processes related to important aspects of education such as student mobility under the ERASMUS program and internships. In this context, it stands out from all other newly established architecture schools with its experience. Additionally, our Architecture Department is the first and only state-run architecture school in the Anatolian side of Istanbul.

We are taking the first steps toward establishing our institutional identity and tradition within our faculty. At the core of this identity lies the idea of nurturing professionals who are aware of their responsibilities to themselves and their surroundings—in essence, self-aware individuals with solid professional knowledge and skills, strong ethical values, intellectual depth, scientific and artistic richness, courage, enthusiasm, a keen interest in professional innovation and change, and international academic visibility. Because we know that our profession eventually becomes our way of life, even part of our identity. In this sense, we take a principled approach to supporting our students, not only with professional education but also as the young generation of our country, so that you can move forward with scientific, cultural, intellectual, human, and ethical values. We strive and are conscious of raising individuals who are beneficial to themselves, their families, society, their city, their country, and humanity, beyond preparing you for professional life, because we know that the essence of education is to raise people. After graduation, the steps our students take and the decisions they make, by the nature of our profession, have a direct impact on human life, space, city, and society. We believe that shaping the environment we live in, while acting with these inherent values and intentions, contributes to the elevation of professional honor.

And shaping our students' educational lives with the approach that this is a process in which these seeds are sown is one of our fundamental duties.

Prof. Dr. İmre ÖZBEK EREN

Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design