Mark Ferguson, partner of Ferguson & Shamamian Architects, L.L.P. in New York, has been appointed by Catholic University President John Garvey as the next dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. He will assume his new duties July 1, 2020.
Ferguson holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Carnegie-Mellon University and a master’s in architecture from Princeton University. Since its founding in New York in 1988, Ferguson & Shamamian Architects has grown to a firm of 90 with projects in 23 states and five countries. Its primary focus is the design of private residences including city apartments, townhouses, suburban houses, and country estates.
“We are thrilled that Mark has agreed to succeed Randy Ott as the Dean of our School of Architecture and Planning,” said Garvey. “There may be no better residential architect in the United States. The firm that he and Oscar Shamamian have built has a wide geographic reach and a portfolio of beautiful projects in a diversity of styles. He is not only a brilliant architect, but a builder of institutions and a warm and engaging leader of people. I look forward to working with him in advancing the work of our school.”
Ferguson has experience teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design and serving as a visiting critic at the University of Miami.
“As a practitioner, I have had the privilege of coaching many young architects, helping them grow into mature professionals, key members of our business organization, and valued contributors to the communities we serve,” Ferguson said. “At CatholicU, I look forward to expanding the opportunities to create knowledge and to inspire lifetime learners who acquire the awareness, skills, and judgment to be trusted stewards of the places in which we live. With the support of a university community driven by a clear sense of purpose, the school will provide a solid foundation, second to none, for young architects to make the world a more humane and beautiful place.”
Ferguson is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a founding member of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, and serves as director of the National Board of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.
He succeeds Randall Ott, who has served as dean of the school since 2003. Ott will continue as a tenured faculty member after a yearlong sabbatical.
Ferguson and his wife Natalie raised their two daughters in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. His daughters, one a lawyer, the other an artist and teacher, are now both married and living in Park Slope and Chicago, respectively.
About coming to Washington, D.C., and Catholic University, Ferguson said, “I am excited to become immersed in a new city, to enjoy the abundant human and institutional resources of the nation’s capital, to collaborate with the University’s deans and the school’s faculty to maintain a superior learning environment for the whole person. I especially look forward to developing a curriculum in which Modern and Classical schools of thought are strengthened by an open, curious approach to ideas and buildings, both old and new, and that embrace the perennial need to nurture human lives through conservation and innovation. I can’t think of a better place to be part of that movement than at Catholic University.”