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.