Dr. Xavier Costa, an architect, author and former dean of the Elisava Design School at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, will be the first dean of the newly-formed College of Arts, Media and Design Sept. 1, according to and e-mail from the Office of the Provost.
Costa was one of the candidates recommended to Provost Stephen Director by a committee of nine people, including an undergraduate and a graduate student, and six faculty members.
“[Costa] brought and exciting sense of possibility for the interdisciplinary work that will go on here,” said Stephen Burgard, Director of the School of Journalism and a member of the search committee.
As of July 1, the College of Arts, Media and Design will include the School of Architecture, Department of Art + Design, Cinema Studies Program, Department of Communication Studies, Creative Industries Program, School of Journalism, Department of Music and Department of Theatre.
“One of the basic facts of this new college is that it’s bringing together a bunch of units that haven’t been brought together quite like this,” Burgard said.
At the Elisava Design School, Costa’s accomplishments included organizing 24 graduate programs; he is also chair of the Metropolis Graduate Program in Architecture at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain.
He has curated work for the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona in Spain and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and he is Curator of Architecture for the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, an organization dedicated to spreading knowledge about the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, a building from architecture’s Modern Movement by the namesake architect. His published works cover topics like Dutch architect Wiel Arets and urban architecture.
