The University of Buenos Aires officially began imparting architecture degrees in 1901, becoming the first architecture school in Argentina. The department of architecture was in the beginning part of the
Faculty of Exact, Physical, and Natural Sciences, which had its seat at the
Manzana de las Luces complex, in Downtown Buenos Aires. Adjacent to the faculty were the
Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires and
St. Ignatius' Church. The university counted with under a dozen architecture students up until 1912. In its early years, the Escuela de Arquitectura was heavily influenced by
French schools of architecture, following the cues of Paris' . The Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism was founded as an autonomous faculty in 1947, through Law 13.045 approved by the
Argentine Senate following arduous debate. The first dean of the faculty was Ermete de Lorenzi. The
Night of the Long Batons, in July 1966, marked the beginning of a difficult period for the faculty. Throughout the 1960s, the faculty had its seat at two warehouses near the
Faculty of Law. Its name was changed to its current "Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism" in 1985, when graphic design and other design disciplines were incorporated into the graduate course offer. Nowadays, FADU and the
Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEN) are the only two faculties to have their seat at Ciudad Universitaria, alongside a number of research centers and other minor facilities. Like other UBA faculties and other universities across Argentina, FADU students and professors suffered persecution under the country's last
military dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983. During the dictatorship, the faculty's handpicked dean was professor Héctor Corbacho, who taught technical drawing at the Navy's
Escuela de Mecánica (ESMA). In 2005, a report estimated that up to 110 FADU students, professors and personnel were arbitrarily detained and
disappeared during the dictatorship. ==Degrees==