GSD (Finally) Chooses Dean
Harvard nabs Mostafavi from Cornell

After months of searching, Harvard has chosen the new dean for its Graduate School of Design (GSD). The university announced today that Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University since 2004, will replace Alan Altshuler in January. In October 2006, Altshuler announced plans to retire at the end of the 2006-2007 school year, but as the search dragged on, he agreed to stay through the coming fall semester.

Mostafavi is already well acquainted with the GSD: He taught there from 1990 to 1995, and in 1992 he took over the MArch I program until his departure. “It is particularly gratifying to return to Harvard, where I spent many happy years,” he said in a statement. Born in Iran, the renowned scholar made his name as dean of London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) from 1995 until he joined Cornell. He also studied at AA in the early 1970s and later studied as the University of Essex and the University of Cambridge.

Harvard University president Drew Faust praised Mostafavi’s experience as a leader and an academic in the decision to anoint him the new dean. “His interests extend across the GSD’s principal domains of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design, and his leadership style is marked by an openness to new ideas and an instinct for crossing boundaries in creative ways,” Faust said in a statement.

Under Altshuler, the deanship has been fraught with controversy. Many believe he is leaving because he supported deposed president Larry Summers. Some faculty members also complained about having a planner, not an architect, ruling the roost. Altshuler’s controversial status, as well as the delicate politics of choosing a successor, caused the search process to drag on for months. The short list reportedly included U.S. academic luminaries Tom Hahrahan of Pratt and Mark Robbins of Syracuse.

Mostafavi himself is no neophyte to controversy. While at Cornell and the AA, a number of faculty members left over various disputes with the dean or the direction in which he took the schools. And while Faust may praise the academic’s leadership skills, others say his brazen style is partly to blame. Then again, the GSD, where sharp elbows preside, may need exactly Mostafavi’s brand of leadership.

Matt Chaban

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