The School of Architecture and Planning is an integral part of the University of New Mexico. While the University was founded by an act of the Territorial Legislature in 1889, the role of designing and building settlements in the Rio Grande valley has been prominent in the development of the region since statehood in 1912. The School has strong historic ties with both the College of Engineering and the College of Fine Arts on the main campus. Beginning in 1937, architecture was offered as a concentration in the College of Fine Arts, and at the end of World War II, building and technology pulled the program to the College of Engineering. In 1957, the Colleges of Engineering and Fine Arts formed a special division of architecture.

The University of New Mexico has been educating architects since the early part of the twentieth century.

• 1937 - The first architectural concentration at UNM was established within the College of Fine Arts.
• 1947 - A four-year architectural engineering program was approved within the College of Engineering and grew to an enrollment of 70 students.
• 1956 - A five-year architectural program was established in the Division of Architecture, responsible to both the College of Engineering and the College of Fine Arts.
• 1967 - A six-year (4+2) program with the four-year undergraduate pre-professional degree leading to the professional degree of Master of Architecture was established. The program has been fully accredited since 1968. The following year, the Design and Planning Assistance Center was established—the center is now one of the country's oldest and most prestigious community design centers.
• 1975 - The Department became an independent School with its own Dean, within the University. The School became a place where architecture and planning could exist in an atmosphere of mutual growth.
• 1978 - A four-year undergraduate pre-professional degree of Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design was added to the School's offerings and the Institute for Environmental Education was founded.
• 1980 - The School established a two-year graduate program leading to a Master of Community and Regional Planning. The newest degree program, Master of Landscape Architecture, was established in 1999.

Currently about 150 undergraduate students and 100 graduate students are enrolled in the pre-professional and professional degree programs in the Architecture Program. This number has held relatively constant for the last 10 years to maintain an extremely high-quality educational experience.