Paris Is for Architects
For over 20 years, Rice School of Architecture Paris has offered an immersive learning experience in a global design capital.
By Andrew Bell
When Rice launched the Rice Global Paris Center in 2022, it drew inspiration from another program that had proven the city’s potential as a laboratory for learning — Rice School of Architecture Paris.
Founded in 2002 by current director John J. Casbarian ’69 — the Harry K. and Albert K. Smith Professor of Architecture, director of external programs and a faculty member at Rice since 1973 — the program has given generations of students the chance to study and live in one of the world’s great cities. “Paris itself is the classroom,” Casbarian says. “It’s a place with incredible layers of history, where you can walk out the door and see everything from medieval cathedrals to the newest experiments in urbanism. That kind of immersion changes the way students think about architecture and about themselves.”
Each year, around 20 advanced undergraduate and graduate students from the School of Architecture enroll in the semester-long program, comprising courses that integrate studio work, history, theory and cultural study. The streets of Paris and beyond are integral to the curriculum: Students walk Baron Haussmann’s boulevards and spend weekends at celebrated architectural sites, including Le Corbusier’s iconic Villa Savoye and Convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette. Faculty have included celebrated Paris-based architects and scholars such as Françoise Fromonot, Nicholas Gilliland, Jim Njoo, Antoine Picon, Didier Rebois and Nasrine Seraji, whose deep knowledge of the city help students see its architecture as a living system.
The program also acts as a larger European platform, bringing in faculty from other cities — such as Brussels-based Xaveer De Geyter, head of the award-winning firm XDGA — and taking students on field trips as far away as Berlin and Ljubljana and as nearby as London and Bordeaux. In addition, RSAP’s cozy, street-facing base on Rue Crozatier has hosted lectures, symposia and other public events featuring major luminaries in the field, including Peter Cook and Timothy Benton.
“What has always characterized the Rice School of Architecture is the fact that we are a small, close-knit community that is at the same time broad and international in character,” says Igor Marjanović, the William Ward Watkin Dean and professor of architecture. “Our Paris facility offers a beautiful, intimate studio space to make work while challenging the students to embrace other cultures, approaches and communities. We believe this challenge to be an essential lesson for architects and citizens alike and are committed to this vision and to the internationalism of architecture more broadly.”
For Yidong He ’24, who studied in Paris in 2023, the semester was “like a continuous symposium” that reshaped his understanding of urbanism and inspired him to pursue graduate study at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. “Seeing iconic works in person — not in a book or on a screen — gave me another layer of understanding about architecture and the city,” he says.
That kind of immersion often proves transformative. “Traveling is one thing, but living in Paris connects you in a way being a tourist never can … the city itself becomes part of your education,” says Yao Xiao ’26, a Master of Architecture student. Shree Kale ’22 recalls the initial culture shock of navigating a new language and city before settling into the rhythms of studio work and Paris’ famously balanced lifestyle. “I learned to live my life and let that inform my work,” he says. “That perspective is something I carry into my career today.”
The program’s influence stretches back across generations. Heather Rowell ’09, a principal at Houston-based architecture studio HR Design Dept, recalls the walking tours led by Fromonot in particular as defining moments. “She opened our classroom door and took us outside into Paris,” Rowell says. “She showed us how the city’s history unfolded and adapted, layer by layer. It was unlike anything I had experienced.”
Casbarian has watched hundreds of students have similar moments of discovery. Over two decades, he says, the program has evolved — refining its courses, expanding field trips across Europe and connecting with Rice Global Paris — but the spirit has remained the same. “Every semester is still an adventure,” he says. “The city changes, the students change and every group brings a new perspective.” That adaptability and immersion, he adds, are what make RSAP enduring. Alumni who have gone on to graduate studies, launched practices and built careers around the globe often credit their Paris semester as the most formative chapter of their education.
Now in its 23rd year, Rice School of Architecture Paris continues to offer students what its founder envisioned: not just a study abroad program, but an encounter with architecture, culture and life that reverberates long after graduation. “Living and learning in Paris challenges you,” Casbarian says. “But it also gives you the tools to see the world differently. And for architects, that’s essential.”
From the Winter 2026 issue of Rice Magazine