Project for Public Spaces

WHO WE ARE

Cynthia Nikitin

Vice President

Cynthia Nikitin has earned a reputation as a persuasive advocate for “Placemaking” as an approach to city planning and urban design. As a manager of numerous large-scale and complex projects during her fifteen years with Project for Public Spaces, Inc., where she is Vice President for Public Buildings and Downtowns, she has striven to serve as a compelling voice in support of more sustainable towns and cities nation-wide. With a portfolio of more than 150 projects, Cynthia's technical expertise stretches from the development of downtown main street master plans and corridor enhancement projects, to the creation of transit station area plans, and public art master plans for major cities. This includes facilitating approximately 40 public workshops, visioning sessions, and public meetings annually.

At PPS, Cynthia has been involved in all phases of project development and management, including proposal writing, creating scopes of services, contract negotiation, budgeting and project management, staff supervision, research, on-site observation, meeting facilitation, report and publication writing, conceptual design development, creating and giving PowerPoint presentations, and workshop facilitation. She has also contributed to developing training for transportation and community planning professionals (including Context Sensitive Solutions courses for New York and New Jersey State Departments of Transportation, and PPS’s “How to Turn a Place Around” training course), and has presented numerous academic lectures and teachings.

Cynthia has been instrumental in shaping PPS’ Public Buildings Initiative with the General Services Administration. The multi-million dollar program provides technical assistance for the redesign of federal plazas and public spaces nationwide. The innovative program also provides for research, training, networking and web resources for architects and building managers.

A warm and humorous speaker, Cynthia has delivered keynotes, professional training and workshops across the U.S. She brings PPS's common sense approach to her writings. These are extensive and wide-ranging, and include regular contributions to The Public Art Review.

Before joining PPS in 1991, Cynthia worked as a corporate art consultant for The Art Collaborative in New York, was head curator and gallery manager at the Zenith Gallery in Washington, DC, and worked on the selection and commissioning of artists for airports and corporate centers at Works of Art for Public Spaces, a public art consulting firm in New York.

Ms. Nikitin received her Bachelor's degree in Art History and International Development at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. For her self-designed NYU Masters Degree, which combined Arts Management with Urban Planning, she conducted an independent study/research tour of metro public art programs in London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg Russia, and Stockholm. Her thesis, "Bringing the Sun Underground," is a comparative analysis of the procedures used in each of these cities to implement such programs.

Education

Clark University, Bachelor of Arts: Art History and Comparative Politics, 1981. New York University, Masters of Arts: Arts Management and Urban Planning, 1991.

Professional Affiliations


Art-in-Architecture Art Peer, General Services Administration (GSA) 1998 to present

Auditor, Visual Arts and Special Arts Services Program, New York State Council on the Arts (1994 to present)

Board Member, The Bronx River Art Center, Bronx, NY (1999 to present)

Reviewer for the Smithsonian Challenge America Fast Track Grants, 2003 and 2004

Selected Professional Presentations and Panel Discussions

Missoula in Motion TDM Congress, Keynote Address, Missoula MT, April, 2005

“Making Main Street Work,” two-session workshop, LISC Urban Forum, San Francisco, CA, May 2005.

“Connecting Land Use and Transportation,” NYU Rudin Center, Challenge of Congestion in the New York Region, ”NYU, November 2004.

Facilitation of a two one day Design Charrettes for the Miami Bay Walk, Miami, FL, June and December 2004.

“Using Transportation to Build Livable Communities”, Community Impact Assessment workshop, Washington DOT, Spokane, WA, June 2003

“The Role of DOTs in TOD,” Railvolution, Atlanta, GA, September 2003.

“The Benefits of Place,” National Park Service, Los Angeles, CA November 2003

Respondent to the Keynote Address, Americans for the Arts: Public Art Pre-Conference, Nashville, TN, June 2002.

“Transit-Oriented Growth,” General Session, Transit 2000 Bus and Technology Conference, Saratoga Springs, NY, November 17, 1999.

“The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Communities,” Housing Washington 1999, Washington State Housing Finance Commission, Washington State Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development, Seattle, November 2, 1999.

“Hop, Drop, Shop: Trackside Retail and Economic Development,” Rail-Volution, Dallas, TX, September 1999.

“Creating Pedestrian Environments,” Downtown New Jersey Conference, 1999,1996,2000.

“Building Livable Communities Through Transportation: Examples from the Berlin/Brandenburg Region of Germany,” Rail-Volution, Portland, OR, 1998.

Publications 1999-2002

“Art in Transit Catalogue 1999,” for the Bi-State Development Agency’s Arts in Transit Program, October 1999.

“How Community and Transportation Partnerships are Shaping America: Parts I and II,” American Public Transit Association and American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials, July 1999 and September 2000.

Review of “Premises: Invested Spaces in Visual Arts, Architecture and Design from France,” Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York. Sculpture Magazine, January 2000.

“Making Public Art Work,” (a review of key public participation methods and practices), Sculpture Magazine, July 2000.

Review of “Environmentally Concerned” at the Bronx River Art Center, Bronx, NY, Sculpture Magazine, April 2001.

Additional Lectures and Presentations

Keynote Address, Friends of the Library, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Fall Program focusing on the public’s role in public art and public spaces, October 1996.

“Our New York: Public Places,” the Mayor’s Anti-Graffiti Task Force and the United Federation of Teaches, sponsored by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New York, Winter 1996.

"The Evolution of the Political and Social Dualism Depicted in the Art and Architecture of the Moscow Metro," The Friends of Central Park, New York, 1992.

"Artistic Treatments for Metro Station Architecture," Moscow Institute of Architecture, Moscow, Russia, 1991.

Panels

Panelist, “Creating Pedestrian Environments” and “Creating Livable Downtowns with Transit,” Downtown New Jersey Conferences, 1999, 1996.

Panelist, Building Livable Communities Through Transportation: Examples from the Berlin/Brandenburg Region of Germany,” Rail-Volution, Portland, OR, September 1998.

Panelist, “Beyond Site Specific Art,” Mid American College Art Conference, Richmond, VA, October 1997.

Panelist, Symposium “Public Art and Memorialization,” held at St. John the Divine, sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Circle Public Art and Memorialization subcommittee, the Central Park Conservancy and the Cityscape Institute, June 1996.

Organizer and Moderator, “All Aboard: Engaging Communities in Public Art Making,” Municipal Art Society, New York. Discussion of public art projects which involved communities in innovative ways. 1995.

Panelist, "Adopt-a Programs Proliferate for Transit,” Transaction '94 transportation symposium sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, 1994.

Panelist, "Public Art Planning Processes," International Sculpture Center's 15th Biennial Sculpture Conference, San Francisco, August 1994.

Co-panelists included Bert Kubli, NEA's Visual Arts Program; Micki Guston, Director of Public Art Programming, Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Authority; Pallas Lombardi, Cambridge Arts Council; and Jerry Allen, Director of Public Art Programs for San Jose, California.

Moderator and panelist, "Arts-in-Transit: Art in the Moscow Metro." Organized by Cooper Union University in conjunction with an exhibition at the World Financial Center, funded by the WFC and Trust for Mutual Understanding. October 7, 1993.

Panel organizer, "Public Art for Public Works." A panel convened at the Municipal Art Society to discuss how art bridges the gap between a city's infrastructure and the people it serves and can act as an adjunct to increased public works activity. Critic Eleanor Heartney moderator, 1992.