The predecessor of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning was the Department of Architecture of Guangdong College of Architectural Engineering founded in 1956. In 1995, the colleges were merged and adjusted to be the Department of Architecture, Guangdong University of Technology. In 2009, the major of Architecture and Urban Planning was established as a separate department of Architecture and Urban Planning. The major has a history of more than 60 years and is one of the earliest majors established by the school. The college covers three first-level disciplines: architecture, urban and rural planning and landscape. The architecture major is a provincial characteristic and key major. There are programs of master's degree in architecture, first-level academic degree in urban and rural planning, full-time professional master's degree in architecture and civil engineering, and second-level academic degree in architecture and urban design. The majors of architecture and urban planning have respectively passed the national undergraduate education evaluations of the Higher Education Institution. Among them, architecture graduates are awarded a bachelor's degree in architecture. The Department attaches great importance to international development and adopts a 3+2 method to jointly train undergraduates with the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. Graduates are awarded both degrees at the same time.

The orientation of the department is to build a talent training model and teaching system that adapts to the development of the times and local needs. Based in Guangdong, facing southern China, serving the local area, cultivating high-quality innovative and applied talents with comprehensive development of morality, intelligence physique and aesthetic, and building the department into an department that “powerful within province, influential in the Greater Bay Area, and well-known throughout the nation.”