University History

By the early sixties a need had arisen — not only in Uzbekistan but across the construction industry of the Central Asian republics — for highly qualified specialists: architects and civil engineers with deep knowledge of architecture and construction. This laid the ground for founding a dedicated architecture and construction institute in Uzbekistan.

In 1965–1966 plans were being drawn to merge the architecture, industrial-and-civil-construction and rural-construction faculties of the Tashkent Polytechnic Institute into an independent construction institute; the 1966 Tashkent earthquake and its destruction accelerated the work.

The Samarkand State Architecture and Construction Institute (SamDAQI) was founded by government resolution No. 367 and by order No. 307 of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialised Education of 15 July 1966. Besides the earthquake, the choice of Samarkand rested on the city's 2,750-year history, its high culture, its unique architectural monuments and its ancient standing as a centre of learning. By resolution No. 198 of 3 May 1967 the institute was named after Mirzo Ulugbek.

In the 1966–1967 academic year the first intake was 525 full-time students: 100 places in Architecture, 350 in Industrial and Civil Construction and 75 in Construction Economics and Organisation. Teaching began on 1 October with seven departments and three divisions — among the first departments were Higher Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, History, Descriptive Geometry, Construction Materials, and Drawing, Fine Art and Sculpture.

The first rector, R.R. Abdurasulov, solved in a short time the hard task of organising the institute, running the first admissions, staffing it and building its material base. To secure the quality of teaching, accomplished scholars were invited from Tashkent, Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Novosibirsk and other cities — among them professors V.A. Nilsen, G. Pugachenkova and V. Pilyavskiy.

Over the years the institute's graduates played an active part in shaping the architectural face of Central Asia's cities and villages. The university's teachers assist central and regional bodies in drawing up Samarkand's construction plan and reconstructing its historic centre.

Today the university comprises the faculties of Architecture, Construction, Economics and Management, and Preservation of Cultural Heritage, along with a further-training faculty, preparatory courses, its departments, an information-technology centre, an information-resource centre and a history museum. Of its more than 500 teachers, over 30 percent hold academic degrees and titles. Partnerships for student and staff exchange and joint research link it with universities in Russia, Germany, Sweden, France, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and beyond.

On 8 November 2022 the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan signed Resolution No. PQ-416 “On measures to further improve the system of training personnel in the field of architecture and construction”. It reorganised the Mirzo Ulugbek Samarkand State Architecture and Construction Institute into the Mirzo Ulugbek Samarkand State Architecture and Construction University, specialising in the restoration of cultural heritage sites, design, architecture, construction, urbanisation and engineering.

The resolution set out the university's main lines of activity: training graduates and academic staff to international professional standards, bringing international educational standards into the curriculum, internships and exchange programmes for teachers and students at leading foreign institutions, putting research results into practice, and strengthening the integration of education, science and industry.

Teaching was to be organised on the credit-module system in Uzbek, English and other foreign languages, with individual learning paths for students and programmes built on those of internationally accredited foreign universities. The negotiations with Istanbul Technical University and Yildiz Technical University on organising education to international standards were noted in the resolution.

Annex 2 of the resolution — the Road Map for the transformation and comprehensive development of the university — became the basis of the reforms that followed: a new organisational structure took effect on 1 May 2023, departments were merged and new ones created, and a Students' Deanery was set up. The full text of the resolution is available below as a PDF.