University of the Witwatersrand

The ‘Wits’ School of Architecture and Planning is engaged with the challenges of design and development in the dynamic African city of Johannesburg and beyond. The School’s core activity is the provision of an excellent learning environment towards accredited professional degrees in architecture and in planning, and towards qualification in related fields such as housing, urban design and wider urban studies.

History

The Department of Architecture was one of the original departments of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which was founded in 1922. The Department was led for its first decades by Professor G.E. Pearse, architect and researcher, whose name is remembered in one of the School’s student scholarships. Since its inception, the Department of Architecture (now School of Architecture and Planning) has been located on the Wits main campus, on the edge of downtown Johannesburg, centre of the Gauteng city-region of about 10 million people today.