As one of the 5 departments under the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department of Architecture is one of the major departments engaged in teaching and scientific research of architecture with a first-level discipline. The Department has established the doctoral program of the national first-level discipline Architecture, and doctoral and postgraduate programs of 3 second-level disciplines, including Architectural Design and Theory, Urban Design and Theory, and Indoor Design and Theory. The Department has a strong faculty, distinct disciplinary characteristics, a complete teaching system and outstanding education quality, and is the department of architecture with the largest scale and greatest overall strength in the middle and west China.

The Department of Architecture currently has 45 full-time teachers, among which there are 10 professors and 12 associate professors. About 48.9% of the full-time teachers hold a title of a senior professional post. Most of them obtained their master's degree or doctor's degree from reputable universities at home and abroad. Fourteen of them have a doctor's degree. There are 9 doctoral supervisors, and 11 master supervisors. The Department enrolls over 120 undergraduate students, over 80 postgraduate students and 5-6 doctoral candidates of Architecture on a yearly basis. More than half of the teachers have studied or worked or have been on an academic visit to the USA, Canada, France, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Japan and Hong Kong.

The Department of Architecture, as one of the major departments engaged in teaching and scientific research of the first-level discipline Architecture, undertakes the development of teaching plan, organization and arrangement of teaching and construction of the disciplinary system. Construction of its teaching system aims at knowledge consolidation and development of innovation capacity, focuses on disciplinary construction and highlights a multi-disciplinary nurturing mode. The Department is now building "one axis", "two wings" and "three platforms" with core courses as the main line, and has established a number of characteristic course groups. Besides, it is also making efforts to build a diversified professional teaching system with distinct regional characteristics.

The Department of Architecture has made remarkable achievements in teaching organization, scientific research, academic research, international exchange and design practice. The discipline Architecture of the Department has gained a great reputation among experts and researchers from home and abroad due to its distinct education characteristics and rich experience. The Department of Architecture participated in the "Selection of Teaching Plan and Teaching Achievements of Architectural Design in Colleges and Universities" organized by the National Specialized Steering Committee on Architecture Discipline, and the teaching plan for different grades and the students' projects it submitted were all appraised as "Outstanding". The Department has remained top-ranking among colleges and universities across China for many consecutive years. In the Students' Paper Competition of China Architectural Education, National Architectural Design Competition for College Students, and other project exchange and selection and construction competition activities for international students, the students of the Department of Architecture have won various awards and received good response from the society. Besides, in parallel with the basic teaching of the discipline, the Eyas Program of Chongqing University and construction of the base for science education, Chongqing University has launched an annual event called "CQU Construction Season" since 2013, which was well received by different sectors of the society.

In recent years, building on the fine tradition of the precious generations of the Department of Architecture and profound historical accumulation, teachers and students of the Department have been making joint and positive efforts and have made significant progress in teaching, scientific research and talent nurturing. Its disciplinary construction focuses on the international frontier of disciplinary development, with mountainous areas in the middle and west China as the base, and urban and rural construction and development of mountain areas as the main directions. It has form distinct characteristics in a number of research areas including mountainous architecture, architectural art and culture, mountainous ecological city design, urban and architectural renewal and heritage protection, urban and rural ecological architecture, and digital architecture. Besides, the Department has made noticeable achievements in building of the faculty, construction of characteristic courses and teaching reform and practice, and has gained extensive academic influence at home and abroad. Graduates from the Department are known for their high quality and significant contributions they have been making to the construction of China and Chongqing, and to the construction and development of the middle and west China.