The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, urban design, real estate, design engineering, and design studies. The GSD has over 13,000 alumni and has graduated many famous architects, urban planners, and landscape architects. The school is considered a global academic leader in design fields. The GSD has the world's oldest landscape architecture program (founded in 1893) and North America's oldest urban planning program (founded in 1900). Architecture was first taught at Harvard University in 1874. The Graduate School of Design was officially established in 1936, combining the three fields of architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture under one graduate school. History Architecture Charles Eliot Norton brought the first architecture classes to Harvard University in 1874. Urban planning and design In 1900, the first urban planning courses were taught at Harvard University, and by 1909, urban planning courses taught by James Sturgis Pray were added to Harvard's design curriculum as part of the landscape architecture department. In 1923, a specialization in urban planning was established under the degree program of Master in Landscape Architecture. In 1929, North America's first urban planning degree (at the graduate level) was established at Harvard under short-term funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The planning program migrated to the Graduate School of Design in 1936. Then in 1981, the then City and Regional Planning Program under John Kain ceased at the Graduate School of Design and was dispersed to the Kennedy School of Government and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1984, the Department of Urban Planning and Design was formed under Dean Gerald M. McCue with the inclusion of the Urban Design Program. Then in 1994, the Urban Planning program was officially returned to the Graduate School of Design under the aegis of Albert Carnesale, the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, and Peter G. Rowe, the Dean of the Faculty of Design; with the first class entering in academic year 1994–1995. At the time, this program was envisioned as a physical planning program. In 2021, the Department of Urban Planning and Design assumed responsibility for a third graduate degree, the Master in Real Estate (MRE). Landscape architecture In 1893, the nation's first professional course in landscape architecture was offered at Harvard University. In 1900, the