Parsons School of Design
The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art academies in protest of limited creative autonomy, Parsons is one of the oldest schools of art and design in New York.
Parsons was the first school to offer programs in fashion design, interior design, advertising, graphic design, transdisciplinary design, and lighting design. Parsons became the first American school to found a satellite school abroad when it established the Paris Ateliers in 1921. It remains the first and only private art and design school to affiliate with a private national research university, in 1970 when it became one of the divisions of The New School. Organized in five departments, the school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of disciplines in art and design with students also able to combine additional classes and majors in other colleges of The New School.
History
19th century
First established in Manhattan in 1896 as the Chase School by its founder, American impressionist painter William Merritt Chase, who led a small group of artists away from the Art Students League of New York in search of a less traditional, more progressive institution. The Chase School educated several luminaries of early American modernism, such as Marsden Hartley and Edward Hopper. But whereas Chase was a talented artist and teacher, he lacked the business acumen to run a growing school; in 1898, under new management, it became the New York School of Art.20th century
In 1904, Frank Alvah Parsons was hired by Chase as a professor at the school. Around the same time, Parsons studied under the tutelage of vanguard artist and educator, Arthur Wesley Dow at Columbia University. He graduated in 1905 with a degree in fine arts and became the sole director of the New York School of Art in 1911. Seeing a new wave of the Industrial Revolution, Parsons anticipated the importance of art and design to industries. His vision led to a series of firsts at the school: he established the first programs ever in fashion design in 1904, interior design in 1906, and graphic design in 1910. In 1909, the school was renamed the New York School of Fine and Applied Art to reflect the new offerings that would combine art and design. Parsons became the sole director of the school in 1911. Parsons advocated for a more democratized movement to design education stating "Art is not for the few, for the talented, for the genius, for the rich, nor the church," Parsons said in 1920. "Industry is the nation's life, art is the quality of beauty in expression, and industrial art is the cornerstone of our national art". Frank Alvah Parsons and alumnus William M. Odom established the school's Paris ateliers in 1921, with assistance from other long-time Parson's teachers, including artists Zerelda Rains and Grace Fuller.Upon Frank Alvah Parsons' death in 1930, William M. Odom succeeded Parsons as director. In honor of Parsons, whose teaching philosophy and theories on the intersections between art and design steered the school's development and reputation, the school became the Parsons School of Design in 1941. In 1942, after directing the Paris location, Parsons alumnus Van Day Truex became director of Parsons until 1952, when soon after he became Tiffany & Company's design director and developed the firm's signature interiors and graphics.
As the curriculum developed, many successful designers maintained close ties with the school, and by the mid-1960s, Parsons had become "the training ground for Seventh Avenue." In 1970, through the efforts of future Parsons Dean David C. Levy, Parsons joined the New School for Social Research, allowing for the expansion of degree programs, research, and partnerships. In 1970, Parsons awards the United States first university degrees in fashion design, interior design, and lighting design.
21st century
In 2005, when the parent institution was renamed The New School, the college was rebranded as Parsons The New School for Design.In 2015, Pentagram Principal Paula Scher led the official redesign of The New School's identity together with Parsons'. The aesthetics of the new identity were drawn from the signage and architecture of The New School's historic Joseph Urban building as well as elements from the recently constructed University Center building in 2013. The new branding utilizes a font called 'Neue', a customized version of the font 'Irma', which is the University Center's wayfinding font. Neue, which means "new" in German, was designed using a computer algorithm. The proprietary font has been named in honor of The New School, with a nod to The New School's progressive teaching philosophy. Pentagram worked with Parsons students to create a special environmental installation at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center as well as on the campus water towers to introduce the new identity. It was at this time the school reclaimed the name Parsons School of Design.
In 2019, IBM approached The New School to develop university courses and a first-of-its-kind Quantum Design Jam with IBM Quantum Experts, New School students, researchers, and faculty. This led to the creation of Parsons' first quantum computing course co-taught by Lin Zhou and Sven Travis. Parsons' Quantum Computing for Design and Social Research project entry subsequently won a FutureEdge 50 Award.
In the same year, the MS in Data Visualization program at Parsons partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students were tasked with interpreting data from The Met Open Access API to design creative presentations on their choice of topics. Parsons' Quantum Computing for Design and Social Research project entry subsequently won a FutureEdge 50 Award. The effort was recognized by The Met's Jennie Choi, General Manager of Collections Information, for "revealing connections didn't know existed".
In 2020, the United Nations collaborated with students from the Global Executive Master of Science in Strategic Design and Management, to promote the UN's Global Communications group's "Decade of Action" campaign. The collaboration focused on human-centered experiences and solutions for climate change and gender equality that would resonate across cultures, generations, and socioeconomic levels.
In 2022, Parsons' communications design department celebrated its centennial with the book "1, 10, 100 Years: Form, Typography, and Interaction at Parsons". The department offered the first undergraduate program of its kind when Parsons began teaching courses in the subject 100 years ago.
In 2023, Parsons launched the RMIT–Parsons Ph.D. collaboration as part of the Practice Research Symposium program. Candidates will work with faculty from both RMIT and Parsons, but their primary geographical home will be the Parsons NYC campus. The Ph.D. degree will be conferred by RMIT in Australia.
In 2025, after university-wide restructuring, resulting in the closure of The Schools of Public Engagement as an independent academic division of The New School, a number of its former programs moved to Parsons.
Campus
University Center
In 1967, New School patrons Vera and Albert List helped purchase and renovate a former department store building at 63-65 Fifth Avenue. The building was named The Albert List Academic Center and served as a cafeteria, graduate facility, and research center of the university for many decades. By the early 2000s, then university president Bob Kerrey, wanting to centralize several of The New School's disconnected colleges around Manhattan, called for the building to be replaced by a larger "university center". While the 63-65 Fifth Avenue demolition plans were initially controversial among students and Village residents, plans for the building were adjusted in response to student and community concerns. In 2010 the building was demolished and a new design for the proposed University Center unveiled. The New School opened the 16-story University Center at 65 5th Avenue in January 2013. The tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect Roger Duffy, is the largest capital project the university has ever undertaken. The building won several design awards including the Urban Land Institute's 2017–2018 Global Award for Excellence and the 2015 North American Copper in Architecture Award. In a review of the University Center's final design, The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called the building "a celebration of the cosmopolitan city". The building has a LEED Gold certification and incorporates green building methods like LED based occupancy sensors, sustainably sourced materials, exterior brass alloy gladding that shades the building, a restricted 35% total glazing envelope, stormwater retention gardens on its roof that funnel to graywater and blackwater recycling tanks, built-in composting vessels in the cafeteria, and a 265-kilowatt cogeneration plant to offset its energy use from the city. At the time of its completion, it was considered one of the most energy-efficient academic buildings in the United States.The complex houses the University Center Library, a student dormitory, lecture halls, a 800-seat auditorium, three dining areas, event spaces, computer labs, sewing construction classrooms and workshops, a shoemaking studio, 17 drawing studios, 12 classrooms, and other specialty sewing labs. The University Center also houses part of The New School Art Collection. The collection, now grown to approximately 2,000 postwar and contemporary works of art, continues the school's tradition of incorporating site-specific works into its public spaces. The school commissioned five socially-themed frescoes by José Clemente Orozco in mid-January 1931, and to date is the only permanent, public examples of this fresco form from Mexico in New York City. The former Albert List Academic Center's boardroom featured the commissioned work by Thomas Hart Benton, America Today, which is now on-view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.