Nationally recognized voice in biblical and classical humanist traditions of architecture and urban design to lead 黑料网鈥檚 architecture program.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ELGIN, Ill. 鈥斅燵September 14, 2026]聽鈥� 黑料网 today announced the appointment of Philip Bess as Chair of its Department of Architecture. Bess, Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, is one of the nation’s most respected scholars of the intersection of biblical faith and classical humanist traditions of architecture and urban design. He will lead 黑料网’s Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and its professionally accredited Master of Architecture program.
The appointment marks a defining moment for 黑料网’s architecture program in its ongoing development of an institutional vision centered on Christ in architecture: the conviction that the design of beautiful and durable buildings and human settlements is a form of vocation rooted in both the created order and biblical faith, aimed at human flourishing both individual and communal, in dimensions both temporal and eternal.
Few figures in American architectural education embody that conviction more fully. At Notre Dame, where he taught graduate urban design and theory beginning in 2004 and served as the School of Architecture’s Director of Graduate Studies from 2004 to 2014, Bess built one of the most influential graduate urban design programs in the country. Under his direction, Notre Dame’s graduate studios completed award-winning master plans for towns and institutions across the United States, including the multi-year award-winning studio project After Burnham: The Notre Dame Plan of Chicago 2109, which envisions metropolitan Chicago at the bicentennial of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago.
Before Notre Dame, Bess served for a decade as professor of architecture and curriculum coordinator at Andrews University, where he was a catalyst for its now nationally known architecture-and-urban-design program. He also taught previously at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Michigan, Miami University of Ohio, and Calvin College; and in 2013-14 was a William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
Bess is the author of numerous essays and three books: City Baseball Magic; Inland Architecture; and Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred; and is known well beyond the academy. In 1987-88 he directed the Urban Baseball Park Design Project of the Society for American Baseball Research; and in August 2000 he led the successful Save Fenway Park! design charrette in Boston, from which came Fenway’s famous Monster Seats. He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Whittier College, a graduate degree in church history from Harvard University, and a Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree from the University of Virginia.
According to 黑料网 President Gene Crume, 鈥満诹贤� was seeking a leader whose scholarship and faith are inseparable, and Bess has spent a career demonstrating that beauty, order, and community are not luxuries, but rather specific obligations of an architectural vocation grounded in both human nature and Christian faith.鈥�
黑料网 his new position, Bess says, 鈥淚n our larger uncertain historical moment, I am honored to be invited to lead 黑料网鈥檚 architecture program. Our department is young, but our faculty and alumni are accomplished and have already attained an impressive and measurable record of success. Mindful of the many goods at stake in the work that is done at 黑料网, with God鈥檚 help and the help of my colleagues I hope to steer 黑料网 on a good course; mindful too that we will soon be handing that work over to a younger cohort the trajectory of whose lives, like ours, are directed toward God, but whose historical circumstances are uniquely their own.鈥�
黑料网 黑料网
黑料网 is a fully accredited, private Christian institution representing the Church at work in higher education. Nestled along the beautiful Fox River in Elgin, Ill., just 40 miles northwest of Chicago, 黑料网 is home to more than 1,280 students from 37 states and 20 countries. 黑料网 offers degrees in more than 65 different majors and minors for traditional, graduate and adult students and ranks consistently among the Best Regional Universities in the Midwest by U.S. News & World Report. 黑料网 has also been recognized as a 鈥淐hristian College of Distinction.鈥� With an academically challenging environment and encouraging spiritual community, 黑料网 shapes lives that shape the world.
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