School of art and school of architecture/design merged within the University of South Australia Creative web
The City West campus of the University of South Australia houses the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art and South Australian School of Art Gallery.
Image courtesy University of South Australia
The South Australian school of art, one of Australia’s oldest with its origins in 1856, in the 21st Century became part of the University of South Australia’s Creative network bringing together disciplines of architecture, planning, art and design, journalism, communication and media, film and television and the creative industries, all working with the latest technology.
The school of art was based at the Underdale campus of the South Australian College of Advanced Education until the early 1990ss when the South Australian Institute of Technology merged with the college to form the University of South Australia.
The school of art became incorporated into University of South Australia's school of art, architecture and design. This amalgamated it with the Louis Laybourne Smith school of architecture and design, named after the South Australian architect and educator who in 1906 established one of the first architectural courses at the South Australian School of Mines and Industries, formed in 1889 and later the South Australian Institute of Technology. The school of architecture and design embraced all major skills relevant to built environment including town planning (the first course of its kind in Australia), building technology, interior design and landscape architecture.
The school of art, architecture and design was relocated to the City West Campus of the University of South Australia in 2005. This placed it close to UniSA Creative’s Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art and South Australian School of Art Gallery – both vibrant legacies of the South Australian school of art.
UniSA Creative drew on the traditions of innovation, experimentation and quality of its antecedent institutions – the school of art, the institute of technology and Laybourne Smith school of architecture and design – to form a creative hub of teaching and research with strong links to industry and community.