Welcome to the DIA, the Dessau International Architecture Graduate School!
At the DIA, we are proud to offer a kind of architecture education that you won’t find anywhere else in Germany. In a unit system focused on intensive work in small studios — run by a great variety of professionals both from within the university and from architecture offices all around the world — we offer a design-oriented curriculum, leading to an internationally accredited Master of Arts Degree.

In almost twenty years, the DIA has established itself as a lively architecture school of international acclaim. Founded as the Dessau Institute of Architecture in 1999, the DIA quickly grew into Germany’s largest English Language Graduate programme in architecture. To reflect this while sticking with its original label, the DIA was later dubbed Dessau International Architecture Graduate School.

Today, with more than 200 students in its two-year programme, the DIA offers an inspiring atmosphere to study architecture. In a community that is truly international, young people from over 50 different countries meet in Dessau. They all join to study architecture in a place that is unique — and has a great legacy. The Bauhaus, to the west of our campus, still lures thousands of people to Dessau. With the DIA, Dessau once more is home to an architecture school, attracting young talents from all over the world. Again, Dessau is the place to explore topical questions, just as the Bauhaus did in its day, and probably would do if it was still there today.

Once more, the question is: What should the world that we live in be like? How does it look? How does it feel? And once more, the focus is on design education. We firmly believe that architects are responsible for providing society with the forms it needs. Hence, we design. We believe our knowledge ought to be in form.

Talking about sustainability the architect’s question is: are there forms that are more sustainable? Considering digital fabrication, the question is: how to use technology to that purpose? Addressing communities we ask: how to make them be at home? In short: We try to make the world a more pleasant place to live in and to look at.

If you want to join: Apply! It may be a great step to take. For many it will be a major change in climate (both literally and metaphorically). We dearly hope you will enjoy it, just as much as we do — to learn from other cultures, to bring people together, to work on the challenging issues we are today facing in our built environment, but also to have fun exploring things you cannot (yet?) do in the real world. Come to Dessau. For a liberating experience you will not forget.

Warmly,

Jasper

Prof. Dr. Jasper Cepl, Director DIA