Pankaj Vir Gupta

Katz Professor of Architecture and Urbanism

Pankaj Vir Gupta  is a founding partner of vir.mueller architects, in New Delhi, a firm encompassing architectural practice, design research and education. He is a licensed architect in the United States, and a registered member of the Council of Architecture in India.

Pankaj Vir Gupta received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture at Yale University.  
 
Committing to the evolution of Indian architecture and urbanism, vir.mueller architects are presently engaged in designing significant public projects across India, including cultural and institutional commissions. Completed projects include the University of Chicago Center in New Delhi, the School of Engineering at Ahmedabad University, the flagship campus for the Healthy Planet School in Noida, and the Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in New Delhi – the first contemporary museum in India to be built on a World Heritage Site. The firm upholds an identity of citizen-architect; thus, engagement with the public as an educated and informed voice of design-related issues, remains critical to our identity as an architectural design studio. This philosophy has guided our years of teaching in the U.S. and in India, and in our consulting and advisory roles for public and private clients.

Pankaj Vir Gupta is the Director and Co-Founder of the Yamuna River Project, a major pan-university research project.

Since 2012, he has been teaching Urban and Architecture Design studios and leading a multi-disciplinary research initiative focused on the revitalization of urban precincts adjacent to the Yamuna river in New Delhi, creating a vital ecological center for India’s capital city. The Yamuna River Project confronts the dilemmas of unplanned urban expansion and challenges posed by extreme weather in mega-cities, with an analytical, research-based methodology, and facilitates a dynamic collaboration between diverse knowledge partners, encompassing faculty and students in Architecture, Urban Design, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Anthropology, Public Health, Business, Economics, and the Humanities - and including municipal authorities, political leaders, and non-government organizations. This project has won several national and international awards and achieved international recognition.  

Pankaj Vir Gupta is the co-author (with Christine Mueller and Cyrus Samii) of the monograph Golconde: the introduction of modernism in India (2010 Urban Crayon Press). The book documented a rare and early use of cast-in-place concrete construction in India – in an exemplary modern building by architects Antonin Raymond and George Nakashima. Most recently, he has co-authored (with Inaki Alday) Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecology (2018 Actar Press, New York & Barcelona).This book encapsulates the research conducted over the past six years, offering an evidence-based analysis of the crisis afflicting the urban ecology of the Yamuna River in New Delhi. In 2018, the book was recognized as one of the top ten architecture books of the year by the German Architecture Museum (DAM).

Pankaj Vir Gupta has taught and lectured in Europe, in the United States, and in India.  The professional work of vir.mueller architects has been awarded and published internationally.  Pankaj is a passionate advocate for higher education and volunteers his time to mentor and guide aspiring students.