Vikramaditya Prakash

Professor

Dr. Vikramaditya “Vikram” Prakash is an architect, architectural historian and theorist. He is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington with adjunct appointments in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and Planning. He received his B. Arch. from Chandigarh College of Architecture, India and his M.A. and PhD in History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University.

Vikram is co-design lead of O(U)R: Office of Uncertainty Research [officeofuncertaintyresearch.org], a conceptual design research practice dedicated to rethinking architecture in terms of the emergent scientific, social and political parameters of the 21st century. O(U)R has exhibited at the 2022 Venice Architecture Biennale, and the 2022 ECC Time, Space and Existence exhibition in Venice.

Vikram works on issues of modernism, postcoloniality, global history and fashion & architecture. His books include Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, A Global History of Architecture (with Francis DK Ching & Mark Jarzombek), Colonial Modernities (co-edited with Peter Scriver), The Architecture of Shivdatt Sharma, Chandigarh: An Architectural Guide, One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash, Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial (co-edited with Maristella Casciato and Daniel Coslett). His next book, A House Deconstructed is due in summer 2023.

Vikram is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Built Environments. He previously served as Associate Dean for External Affairs, Chair of Architecture and Director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs. His public service includes terms on the Boards of Seattle Center and the Seattle AIA. He also directed Chandigarh Urban Lab, a series of interdisciplinary international studios.

Vikram is co-PI (with Mark Jarzombek, MIT) of three successive grants of $1.0 million (2014), $1.5 million (2016) and $1.0 million (2019) awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. These resulted in the creation of GAHTC – a collective of over 200 teachers of global architectural history.

Vikram is host of ArchitectureTalk – a bi-weekly podcast based on curated conversations with invited guests. As of December 2022, ArchitectureTalk has received over 220,000 unique downloads and has been independently reviewed in The American Scholar.

The 2020 Annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recognized Vikram with the title of ACSA Distinguished Professor.