Cynthia Nikitin
Assistant Vice President

Cynthia Nikitin is a qualified expert and persuasive advocate for PPS' approach to placemaking. As a manager of numorous large-scale and complex projects, she adds a compelling voice to the call for more livable towns and cities.

With a portfolio of more than 100 projects, Cynthia's technical expertise stretches from the development of downtown master plans and street enhancement projects; to the analysis and evaluation of state-of-the-art bus transfer centers throughout California, and the drawing up of public art master plans for major cities.

Cynthia has been instrumental in shaping PPS’s 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. The program also provides for research, training, networking and web resources for architects and building managers. In addition the the Public Buildings Initiative, Cynthia manages a number of large-scale transportation projects and coordinates PPS’s Public Arts Program.

A warm and humorous speaker, Cynthia has delivered keynotes, professional training and workshops across the U.S. Audiences include the General Services Administration, Caltrans, Cityscape Institute, Rail-Volution, Moscow Institute of Architecture, Municipal Art Society and New Jersey Department of Transportation, in additional to hundreds of municipal government agencies and neighborhood groups.

Cynthia also brings PPS' 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.

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)

SOS ! 2000 Achievement Award and Assessment Award Reviewer for the
Smithsonian Institution’s national preservation achievement awards
program

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.

Selected Professional Presentations and Panel Discussions

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.

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.