Join Vishaan Chakrabarti, FAIA, Founder and Creative Director at the New York City-based Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), for a lecture on architecture for the public good, followed by a conversation with Reed Kroloff, Dean and Rowe Family College of Architecture Endowed Chair, IIT College of Architecture.
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The Refinery at Domino, Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Max Touhey.
Throughout a 30-year career forged by leadership roles at SOM and SHoP Architects and now PAU, Vishaan has upheld a strong belief in democratic public process and the promise of architecture and urban planning for shaping an equitable, sustainable and joyous urbanity. PAU is widely admired for transformative city-building projects and influential reports on housing, open space, transportation and civic infrastructure.
Vishaan is a sought-after educator, lecturer and thought leader focusing on our shared urban future and has taken up the mantle of “citizen architect” — rooted, perhaps, in his important work with the New York City planning department during the Bloomberg Administration. He is the author of two books: A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America (Metropolis Books, 2013), and most recently, The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (Princeton University Press, September 2024). In 2025 he was awarded the Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Award in recognition of his visionary approach to urbanism, commitment to ecological and equitable design, and leadership in shaping the built environment.
In this talk, you’ll learn about selected works that speak to the breadth and impact of the practice in and outside of New York, and what it means to be an architect-planner contributing to the public discourse. Case studies include the successful adaptive reuse of the Domino Sugar Refinery on Brooklyn’s waterfront, a redevelopment proposal for Penn Station, the master plan for Detroit’s Michigan Central Station Innovation District, and the in-progress expansion of I.M. Pei’s Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Ticket holders are invited to enjoy a reception with light bites and refreshments at 5:00 p.m. outside the lecture hall. The program starts at 6:00 p.m.
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With over thirty years of proven experience authoring and implementing visionary urban architecture, Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism | PAU, where he leads the firm’s growing global portfolio of cultural, institutional, and public projects including the redesign of New York’s Penn Station, the design of the FAA’s new sustainable air traffic control tower prototype, the expansion of Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Indianapolis’ new multi-modal Wave Bridge, Brooklyn’s Domino Sugar Refinery, Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Yards, and Princeton's Hobson College.
He is the author of two books: A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America (Metropolis Books, 2013), and most recently, The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (Princeton University Press, September 2024). In 2025 he was awarded the Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Award in recognition of his visionary approach to urbanism, commitment to ecological and equitable design, and leadership in shaping the built environment.
Reed Kroloff is dean of Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture. In a career spanning more than 25 years, he has also been: editor-in-chief of Architecture, which under his direction became the nation's leading architectural magazine; dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture, which he led through Hurricane Katrina and the following recovery; and director of the famed Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum. A regular national commentator on architecture and design, Kroloff has authored writing that has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Esquire, and Metropolis. He has also appeared in a number of television programs for such networks as PBS and the Sundance Channel. He is a partner of jones|kroloff, with clients who have included the High Line in New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, the federal government of Mexico, and dozens more. He is a Rome Prize recipient, and his work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale. He has degrees from Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin.
New New York proposal for a transformed Penn Station. Photo courtesy of ASTM, PAU and HOK
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Expansion. Photo courtesy of PAU.
Aerial view of redevelopment plan for Sunnyside, Queens. Courtesy of PAU
