2023 Posthumous Legacy Award
The late Richard “Dick” Welsh has had an absolutely outsized influence on the trajectory of architecture in San Diego (and beyond). As a community college instructor realizing that his students, despite their abundant qualifications, were unable to get into architectural programs in California, Dick launched the NewSchool of Architecture in 1980 with the vision of providing students with an accessible and high-quality architectural education. While NewSchool’s beginnings were humble, its faculty and staff shared in Welsh’s vision to provide students with a challenging and inspiring education.
This vision of a “New School” was based on New York’s New School of Social Research that integrated architectural practice and education in a meaningful way. Further, Dick Welsh envisioned the NewSchool of Architecture becoming an “Urban Lab” – with the school located in an active urban environment so that the students learn from what was going on outside the school as well as inside the studio and classroom, where new ideas about the design of the built environment are explored and shared with the broader community. Indeed, when the school moved from Chula Vista to its present East Village site, professional offices hiring students looked down into the studio space. One could literally practice and learn without leaving the building.
NewSchool has educated and graduated thousands earning their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture, who go on to earn prominent positions in prestigious firms.
While NewSchool is rarely mentioned in the same rank as the “Name” schools, it was – and is – their equal! The school that Dick started 44 years ago, along with its students, its faculty, and its staff have planted – and continue to plant many seeds – in the form of the people and projects that have blossomed to improve our region.
