The program in Urban Design and Architecture Studies (UDAS) offers an interdisciplinary and analytic approach to this field, providing both a broad, humanistic perspective on the physical aspects of the city environment and preprofessional training for future architects, city planners, public administrators, and writers on urban problems. An internationally renowned faculty and a diverse group of students share the Grey Art Library and Study Center, which includes lecture and seminar rooms, offices, a reference library, and ample space for the study of visual materials.Urban Design and Architecture Studies is part of the Department of Art History, which New York Times art critic John Russell once described as the best undergraduate department of art history in the country. The art history program at NYU was established to provide a rigorous and wide-ranging education in the many facets of the history and theory of art, a mission that its faculty continues to enthusiastically embrace. Students become familiar with global art from antiquity to the present, taking courses not only in painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography but also in graphic media, manuscript illumination, the decorative arts, and urban design. The department is one of the few undergraduate programs in the country with extensive offerings in conservation and museology. A myriad of museums, galleries, and local architectural sites make New York City the ideal place in which to study the visual arts on site and in the flesh. Beyond New York, art history courses are offered at NYU's study away sites, such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, London, Madrid, Paris, and Prague.
