This year marks the 60th anniversary of three events that were important to the future of the College of Architecture and Georgia Tech:

The opening of the Architecture Building, designed by the firm of Harold Bush-Brown, J. Herbert “Doc” Gailey and P. M. Heffernan, the first modern architectural school building in the nation, and the formal initiation of programs of study in Industrial Design and City Planning.

The building opened on September 20, 1952 and in his opening address the then director Harold Bush-Brown said:

And if the School of Architecture at Tech is able to give its future graduates the kind of preparation, which will enable them to help create a better environment for our people, no expenditure of money will have been mis-spent. We need and we can have better homes and better places in which to work, better products of industry, and above all better cities and towns and rural communities.

The 60th Anniversary Celebrations will begin by reproducing exactly an exhibition from 1955 A Half Century of Architectural Education which illustrated the work of graduates in architecture from the first the fifty years. All the panels have survived and present a grand view of the ambitions for architecture in the 50’s: and there are familiar names.

And at the same time we will unveil the restoration of the original Architecture Library where much of the woodwork has remained hidden, but untouched for thirty years.  I see this as the initial phase in what I hope will be a plan to completely restore the East Architecture Building.

The celebration will continue with a request that will go to all our alumni in Industrial Design, City & Regional Planning and Architecture from 1952 till the present. It will ask you to submit a favorite example of your work, which will form the basis for three exhibitions to be held during the spring semester. All work submitted will be placed in a digital archive - available for all to see - and become an ongoing repository for the creative work of the College.

A most important consequence of all this is to recover the values and ideals that have made this College strong and influential over so many years.

Please mark your calendars and join us for the opening reception of the 60th Anniversary 1952-2012 celebration on November 8, 2012 from 5:30 – 7:30pm.