After graduating from DAAP’s Masters of Architecture program in 1994, Augustin Ioan returned to his home in Bucharest, Romania, but has maintained a relationship with the University of Cincinnati. During the past 18 years, Ioan has returned to DAAP numerous times and even encouraged his own students from Romania to attend DAAP’s architecture program.

Ioan’s relationship with UC started after graduating from the School of Architecture in Bucharest, Romania in 1990. After completing research at Oxford University in the UK, Ioan traveled to Cincinnati and started DAAP’s MSArch program in 1993. He graduated from the program with honors and was named an outstanding graduate student in architecture and outstanding graduate student. 

Ioan returned to Cincinnati in 1999 as part of a Getty grant, and again in 2004 as a Fulbright Senior Scholar Grant. Ioan continues to work with DAAP professor John Hancock, and credits Hancock for helping him complete his master’s degree.

“Based on my research at Oxford University, Professor Hancock allowed me to complete my MSArch,” said Ioan. “Since graduation, we have collaborated on various teaching and research projects. Professor Hancock came to Romania twice and taught in my school. I translated and published Hancock’s book, Radical Hermenuetics and the Work of Architecture.”

Ioan continues to collaborate with Hancock and hopes to bring Professor Hancock back to his school, the University of Architecture and Planning “Ion Mincu” Bucharest, Romania. Hancock and Ioan’s collaboration has brought one student to the MSArch program from Romania every year since 1995.

 “Next year one of my own assistants will go to Cincinnati on a Fulbright scholarship to work with Hancock in his Center for Virtual Heritage Reconstructions of Historic Sites (CERHAS),” Ioan said. “I have at least one other former student who is planning to apply for the same grant in a year.”

When Ioan visits DAAP, he always leaves something for the architecture students and gives back to the university. “Every time I return to the university, I donated my own books that are translated in English to the DAAP Library,” said Ioan. “I visited this past summer and miss DAAP already.”

While Ioan works at the University of Architecture and Planning in Bucharest, he hopes to return to DAAP at least one more time. In the meantime, he’s working with Professor Hancock on a project to record former philosophy professor Jim Bradford who taught in the MSArch program for 20 years.