Amy Catania Kulper has been appointed dean of the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, and she will take up the position on January 6th, 2027. As the new University of Virginia architecture dean, she succeeds Malo Hutson, who has led the school since July 2021 and plans to return to the faculty. The appointment follows a dean search that the university ran over the preceding months.
Amy Catania Kulper. Image via the University of Virginia
Kulper arrives from London, where she served as head of the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London from 2022 to 2026. In that role she oversaw an institution with 1,700 students and 22 academic programmes spread across four sites. The scale of that job gives a sense of the administrative experience she brings to Charlottesville, where she will direct a school of a different size and structure.
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Before the Bartlett, Kulper spent five years as head of architecture and professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her earlier academic career also includes a decade on the faculty of the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She has held teaching appointments at Harvard University, UCLA, the Southern California Institute of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania, so she has worked inside many of the leading architecture schools and licensure pathways in the United States and abroad.
Related on Archinect: University of Virginia begins search for new Architecture dean . Image credit: Scott Smith
Her research examines presentism, the habit of judging and shaping the world by the concerns of the present moment, and its influence on architecture, material culture, archives and spatial politics. Her recent publications include Portals: Pedagogy, Practice, and Architecture’s Future Imaginary. Kulper holds a doctorate and a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, as well as a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, which completes a profile that joins design education, scholarship and institutional leadership.
Olivia Bennett is a seasoned American news editor at Arch2O, born in the UK and a proud alumna of UCLA, where she studied Architecture and Media Studies. With a strong editorial background and a passion for design storytelling, she excels in translating complex architectural ideas into engaging narratives. Olivia focuses on contemporary trends, sustainability, and emerging talents in the field, offering readers a fresh, global perspective on the built environment.