The training in Architecture is recognized and accredited by RIBA - Royal Institute of British Architects and the Ministry of Culture of France.

Faculty of Architecture

General description

The degree programme of Architecture was offered for the first time in 1943, one year after the foundation of the first Higher Technical School in Bulgaria. The Faculty of Architecture consisting of 8 departments was founded in 1951. This is the place in Bulgaria where education in Architecture is offered to students and architects. In the Faculty training is provided to post-graduate and doctoral students, research is performed and designs for significant architectural and town-planning objects are developed.

About 1000 Bulgarian and foreign students pursue their studies at the Faculty of Architecture. The number of the academic staff in the Faculty is 30 lecturers with academic rank and 50 lecturers without academic rank. Disciplines are partly taught by lecturers from other faculties of the University. A number of part-time lecturers with rich professional experience also take part in the education.

The Faculty carries out significant international activities, including student exchange with several European schools of Architecture.

The graduates in “Architecture” are awarded state diplomas for completed higher education with the qualification "Architect”. They can perform a wide variety of activities: complex investigation and planning of regional, landscape and urban complexes and facilities; design and organisation of interior and exterior spaces; management and organisation of construction and construction elements fabrication; institutional and corporate investment policy; investigation and control functions in the city councils with respect to urban planning and architecture; research, implementation and lecturing.

The new Bachelor’s degree programme "Urbanism" is established for the first time in the country in the academic year 002/2003 after a successfully completed joint TEMPUS project with Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK and the University College Dublin, Ireland. The programme follows the recommendations of the Association of the European Schools of Planning (AESOP), European Council of Town Planners (ECTP) and Royal Institute of Town Planners (RTPI), and was accredited by the National Accreditation and Evaluation Agency in Bulgaria in March 2002.

Graduates in "Urbanism" Bachelor degree would be employed at different levels of the private and public sector and as specialists in different areas – In management of urban and suburban areas, municipalities, local authorities and changes in the natural and built environment; as investment consultants in real estate agencies and projects for effective land use; as experts in strategic planning, regional planning, urban and housing policy, planning for tourism, infrastructure and communications, landscape planning, environmental conservation and impact ssessment and land and property management; as designers and team leaders of projects and researches, in the process of preparation and adoption of new laws concerning urban and regional planning as well as the environmental problems.

Planners with Master’s degree will be able to participate as consultants at higher level, as governmen tal institutions’ advisers, public and NGOs, connected with the above mentioned areas, as well as to be involved in new EU programmes for regional development.