OCAD University


Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University, is a public university of art and design located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is adjacent to the Art Gallery of Ontario, within the Grange Park neighbourhood. The school is Canada's largest and oldest educational institution for art and design. OCAD U offers courses through the Faculties of Art, Design, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and alternative programs. The enabling legislation is the Ontario College of Art and Design University Act, 2002.

History

The institution was established by the Ontario Society of Artists in 1876 as the Ontario School of Art, whose objective it was to provide professional artistic training, and further the development of art education in Ontario. The Ontario Society of Artists passed the motion to "draw up a scheme" for a school of art on 4 April 1876, and the first School of Art opened on 30 October 1876, funded by a government grant of $1,000.
In the late-19th and early 20th centuries, the institution was renamed three times. From 1886 to 1890 the institution was renamed the Toronto Art School. From 1890 to 1912, the school was renamed the Central Ontario School of Art and Industrial Design. In 1912, the institution became the Ontario College of Art. The institution remained the Ontario College of Art until 1996, when it was renamed the Ontario College of Art and Design.
In 1971–72, Roy Ascott radically challenged the pedagogy and curriculum structure of the College.
In 2008, OCAD president Sara Diamond changed the pedagogy. She emphasised academics over studio time and required full-time instructors to hold an advanced degree. There was some controversy as two faculty members resigned over the changes.
In an effort to better reflect its status as a university, the institution adopted the term university in its name, formally becoming the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2010. In the same year, Tom Traves, then president of Dalhousie University in Halifax, conducted a confidential review of how OCAD was managed. He found that the number of senior faculty and administrators was excessive. Diamond adopted most of his 30 recommendations, including increased Decanal autonomy. OCAD University was awarded full degree awarding powers including honorary degrees on 1 July 2020 by the Government of Ontario.

Campus

From 1952 to 1957 OCA was located at the Wood Manor at Bayview Avenue and Lawrence Avenue East.
The current OCAD campus consists of a north campus and a south campus. The north campus includes the Main Building and Sharp Centre for Design, the adjacent Butterfield Park, the Annex Building, the Rosalie Sharp Pavilion, the Student Centre, the Inclusive Design Institute, and the Continuing Education Centre. The south campus consists of buildings that are physically situated on Richmond Street West, plus the proposed Mirvish-Gehry development further south on King Street.
Buildings at OCAD are referred to by their street addresses. Some buildings are also assigned a building number that is encoded as the first digit in 4-digit room numbers.

Academic buildings

The Main Building traces its roots to the first building that the school constructed, which was also the first building in Canada specially built for art education. Now known as the George A. Reid Wing, the building was designed by the school’s principal George A. Reid in the Georgian style and opened on 30 September 1921. On 17 January 1957, the first extension, a modernist building known today as the A. J. Casson Wing, was completed and was opened. Two more extensions to the building were subsequently added in 1963 and 1967.
In 2000, funding was secured from Ontario’s SuperBuild program to build a fifth extension to the Main Building. Through Rod Robbie of Robbie/Young + Wright Architects, Will Alsop of Alsop Architects was made aware of the project and was eventually selected in 2002. A joint venture was formed between the two firms and the new extension, now known as the Sharp Centre for Design, was completed in 2004. The design, which came out of a process of participatory design, consists of a box four storeys off the ground supported by a series of multi-coloured pillars at different angles and is often described as a tabletop. The $42.5-million expansion and redevelopment has received numerous awards, including the first Royal Institute of British Architects Worldwide Award, the award of excellence in the "Building in Context" category at the Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Awards, and was deemed the most outstanding technical project overall in the 2005 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.

Libraries and galleries

The main library on campus is the Dorothy H. Hoover Library, located in the Annex Building. The Learning Zone, also located in the Annex Building, houses the OCAD Zine Library, Art & Design Annuals and the Visionnaire periodical collection.
A number of galleries or exhibition spaces exist both on-campus and off-campus; a faculty gallery is also planned as part of the proposed Mirvish-Gehry development.
The existing major exhibition spaces are:
OCAD offers a Bachelor of Arts.
The school combines a studio-based education with liberal studies, which is recognised with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, a Bachelor of Design, an Interdisciplinary Master's in Art Media and Design, a Master of Fine Arts in Criticism and Curatorial Practice, a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, an Executive Master of Design in Advertising, a Master of Design in Inclusive Design, and a Graduate Program in Digital Futures.

Research

OCAD conducts research under the umbrella of the Digital Media Research + Innovation Institute which focuses on creative applied research in digital expression, digital immersion, digital experience and digital media industries. It consist of 19 research labs, including:
In addition to research centres within the school itself, OCAD also belongs to a number of research networks, including:
Commercialization of research is supported by two incubators:

Alumni

Faculty and staff of OCAD University have included