Vishaan Chakrabarti on 10 years of PAU
The architect, urbanist, and writer reflects on the first decade of the studio he founded to connect architecture and urban design.
Vishaan Chakrabarti (ep. 133) has worked across architecture, urbanism, academia, real estate, and even worked under NY mayor Michael Bloomberg as director of the Manhattan Office of the New York Department of City Planning. For the last ten years, however, he’s been running Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), the studio he founded in 2015. When Vishaan was on the show back in 2019, PAU still felt like a new studio, though one already busy with large-scale projects. On the occasion of PAU’s tenth anniversary, I caught up with Vishaan again to reflect on the studio’s first ten years and the projects that have shaped what PAU is and and where it might go next.
Congratulations on 10 years of PAU! If I can get you to reflect a bit: what were your goals for PAU when you were getting it started, and how have they evolved as the studio grew? What are the through lines and what are the new lines of interest?
Thank you, the anniversary has been a great celebration. When I began the firm a decade ago it was to create a new kind of architecture practice focused specifically on urbanism. My central question was and still is: how can we build better, more connected, and more joyous communities through the craft of architecture? As the influence of social media and AI grows, I think this question becomes even more pertinent to the human condition—when we are off our screens and interacting in real life, can we find a deeper sense of connection to each other, to nature, to beauty, and to ourselves? How can architecture in everything from big cities to small villages accomplish this as a grounding force that lives in contrast to the fleeting nature of the digital world?
As time has passed these ideas and questions continue to drive PAU; a consequent through line is that we create what I call “situational” architecture (as opposed to the debate between “contextual” and “object-oriented” architecture that has dominated the discourse for decades). Situational architecture is a mirror and window into the places and prerogatives in which our work is situated, meaning we are both responding to and amplifying the culture of a community through the actions of design and construction. Doing this well is a lifetime’s journey, so it will forever be both an old and new line of interest.
