Presentation

Placed in the oldest Portuguese university, Darq exists since 1988-1989. It was the first public school of architecture to open outside the faculties of Lisbon and Porto, successors of the traditional schools of Fine Arts. It is, therefore, a school that was created within the university, it is not a school that was integrated by the university.

Today, three decades have passed on its opening, is one of the most active and recognized, both in the pedagogical scope and in the scientific field. In fact, one of its most important characteristics lies precisely in the integrative and complementary way of looking at the complexity of relations between teaching and research activities.

From the Integrated Masters in Architecture (MIA), every year, professionals are hunted by the best offices and architectural agencies in Portugal, in Europe, and all over the world. But there are also researchers of high academic standing, recognized as such by their peers, and likewise we can find some of our former students teaching and researching in the most prestigious international academic circles. Moreover, this was our condition of initial installation within the university - as well as all the relations of proximity that it provided - that made Darq's research in architecture from the very beginning and very intensely.

Currently, this school that started thirty years ago is far from being just a training center for architectural professionals. Created in 2008 and taught in active collaboration with the Computer Engineering Department of the FCTUC, the Bachelor and Master courses in Design and Multimedia - LDM and MDM - affirm themselves as innovators in the way they have crossed and made converge two areas of knowledge not combined before They are the most respected computer programmers in design, or the most capable computer science designers, as we wish.

Still in the field of architectural affinities, and created to develop specific and latent capacities in contemporary times, the Master in Integrated Urban Rehabilitation - MRUI - and the Erasmus Mundus International Masters in Architecture, Landscape and Archeology - ALA - are also offered. with the universities of Athens, Rome and Naples

Finally, the PhD in Architecture - CoimbraStudio - is an advanced research center in Darq. It is pursued by national and international students and researchers and places them in research activities. The doctor's degree offered can be carried through a wide range of knowledge in architecture, underlining those that can be inferred from the three main seminars: Culture and City Project; Cultural Studies and Architecture; and Theory and History of Architecture and Urbanism. It develops a global relationship system at the highest level and has partnerships with the main international centers of architectural culture.

Yes, in 1988 the Darq was the first school of architecture created within the university. Today is a school in permanent and restless activity. The learning by doing in architecture and urbanism, the history and theory of architecture and the city, the construction sciences and design all generate among themselves intersections and developments more or less unexpected, in healthy and indistinct respect for all scales and for all values - from the classics to the contemporaries, from the local to the global, from the social and human to the scientific and technological. It is in the building of the College of Arts and its doors are always open.