Dr. Vikramāditya Prakāsh

This page follows Arch251 World Architecture (UW), an introduction to the History of the Architecture of India. Links to the screencasts of lectures, and lecture notes will be posted here. Only UW students can enroll, but lectures are publicly available.

Dr. Vikramāditya “Vikram” Prakāsh grew up in Chandigarh, India. He received his B. Arch. from the Chandigarh College of Architecture, Panjab University (1986), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University, New York (1989, 1994). He taught at the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, India (1991 - 1993) and Arizona State University, Tempe (1994-1996) before joining University of Washington in 1996. 

Dr. Prakāsh is an architect/urbanist and a historian. He teaches studios, lecture courses and seminars on issues in global architecture and urbanism and postcolonial history and theory. His published books include Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India (University of Washington Press, 2002), A Global History of Architecture (with Francis DK Ching & Mark Jarzombek, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006) and Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon (co-edited with Peter Scriver, Routledge, 2007). A Global History is being translated into five languages. He is editor of a series on Modernism in India (Mapin Publishing), of which the first book The Architecture of Shivdatt Sharma (2012) has just been published. The next will be on the work of Aditya Prakash (contracted with Mapin, 2013). Dr. Prakash is also working on Chandigarh 2.0: The Modern City in Neoliberal India(contracted with Routledge, 2013) and a new textbook the history of the architecture of India.

Dr. Prakāsh has served as the Associate Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and as Chair of the Department of Architecture. Currently, he is the Director of the Chandigarh Urban Lab, a multi-year project that studies Chandigarh, historically and today, as a case study in contemporary mid-sized urbanization in India. Conducted in collaboration with the faculty and students of Chandigarh College of Architecture, the Lab actively engages local academics, architects, landscape architects, urbanists, planners, activists and the local administration in its work.

Dr. Prakāsh is also partner in the design firm Verge Architecture with Leah C. Martin. Verge Architecture is dedicated to sustainable and relevant design solutions in a changing world. It is co-located in Seattle and Chandigarh.

Dr. Prakāsh lives in Seattle with his wife and three children. He paints, writes poetry, and is a modern dance, performance art and theater enthusiast. An unpublished play lurks on his hard drive somewhere.