Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect and founder and creative director of PAU (Practice for Architecture and Urbanism), where he leads the firm’s portfolio of cultural, institutional and public projects, which include the redesign of New York’s Penn Station and designing the FAA’s sustainable air traffic control tower prototype. Chakrabarti has over 30 years of urban architecture experience, including president of Moynihan Station Venture at The Related Companies and director of the New York Department of City Planning’s Manhattan office. He has also been dean of University of California, Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design and a professor at Columbia University’s architecture school. Chakrabarti is the author of “A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America” and “The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy.” In 2025, he was awarded the Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Award.
Previously
Architecture doesn’t just build edifices; it shapes societies. Even as transportation infrastructure creates and locks in racial inequality, there is hope that intentional des...