Andrés Jaque announced as new dean of Columbia GSAPP

Andrés Jaque, an architect, curator, and artist who currently serves as Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), has been appointed as dean.

Jaque, who leads GSAPP’s Master of Science in Program in Advanced Architecture Design, replaces WORKac cofounder Amale Andraos.

Andraos announced that she would be stepping down from the role in May 2021, with her term ending at the end of last year. Weiping Wu stepped in interim dean in the months following the departure of Andraos, who had served as dean beginning in 2014. She vacated the role to serve as a special advisor to Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger with a focus on the Columbia Climate School.

News of Jaque’s appointment was shared with the GSAPP community via a letter from Bollinger, who noted that Jaque, who first joined the school in 2013, “has become beloved by his colleagues and demonstrated deep commitment to the success of the institution and its students and alumni. He will steward GSAPP to even greater heights, and I am grateful to him for agreeing to take on this role.”

In addition to his decade-plus-long professorship at GSAPP, Jaque is founder of Office for Political Innovation, a transdisciplinary design firm based in New York and his native Madrid. Jaque and his work with the Office of Political Innovation has garnered international acclaim; among his illustrious accolades are the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts, the Silver Lion for Best Research Project at the 14th Venice Biennale, and the Dionisio Hernández Gil Prize. Jaque has also served in several curatorial roles, including as chief curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale, Bodies of Water.

Jaque also served as a member of the jury for the 2018 AN Best of Design Awards.

“The world is radically evolving, and GSAPP is known for leading change and for mobilizing our disciplines to reinvent societies, environments, politics, and technologies in order to address the challenges of our times,” said Jaque in a statement. “Building on the School’s strong legacy established by my predecessors and the faculty at large, I look forward to further intensifying GSAPP’s role in pushing the disciplinary boundaries of our fields to challenge structural forms of domain, and to redefine the demands of the future.”

Jaque’s deanship is effective beginning September 1.