Architect and Educator Dr. Carol Rusche Bentel, FAIA, Named Chair of BFA Interior Design Department

Jul 31, 2018, New York, NY—School of Visual Arts President David Rhodes has announced the appointment of Dr. Carol Rusche Bentel, FAIA, as chair of the College’s BFA Interior Design Department, effective August 1, 2018. Bentel succeeds Jane Smith, FAIA, who has stepped down after a decade of outstanding service in the position.

Bentel comes to SVA at the height of a distinguished career as a partner in the nationally renowned firm of Bentel & Bentel Architects/Planners, whose projects include nearly a half-century of award-winning designs for higher education, libraries, religious buildings, luxury hotels and some of New York’s most heralded restaurants, the last of which is the subject of Nourishing the Senses: Restaurant Architecture of Bentel & Bentel (Visual Profile Books, 2018), which she co-authored. Her designs have appeared in such publications as Architectural Record, Contract Magazine, Hospitality Design, Interior Design and Metropolis, and have received international honors, including several James Beard Awards and recognition from the American Institute of Architects.

As an experienced educator, Bentel has served on the faculties of the Georgia Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; New York Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Design; New York City College of Technology, City University of New York; and Webb Institute. As an author, she has contributed dozens of articles on architecture and she regularly gives lectures at institutions around the globe. She has served as chairperson to the national AIA Committee on Design, board member of the Preservation League of New York State and peer reviewer for design for the General Services Administration, and serves on juries for national and international competitions and conferences.

SVA’s BFA Interior Design Department comprises approximately 75 students and 19 faculty. Established in 1989, the department offers a four-year program that prepares its students to become the future designers of the built environment. Students learn to integrate current technology with the traditions of drawing and drafting, become proficient in the specialized language used by today’s preeminent design and construction firms and work hand in hand with architects, engineers and builders to envision and realize what it takes to turn design ideas into real spaces where we live, work and play.

"As a practicing professional and longtime teacher, I have worked with design students at both ends of their professional careers,” Bentel says. “In the case of SVA students, I can attest that their exposure to working artists and designers gives them unique insight into the dedication that work in the design fields requires, the social utility it provides and the joy it delivers. That is why they are so motivated and successful. Who better to relate the abstractions of the classroom to the realities of practice than teachers who are out in the field on a daily basis? Who better to identify the future course of design in practice? In my tenure, ‘forward-thinking’ will be a hallmark of our program—looking ahead to the potential of design to serve evolving and future social needs and desires.”

Bentel received a PhD in architectural history, theory and criticism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an MArch from North Carolina State University; and a BA in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout her career, she has received many awards and fellowships, including Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a Fulbright Scholarship at the Istituto di Architettura, Università di Venezia. In 2003 she was elected to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows.