Architect

Victor F. “Trey” Trahan III, FAIA, a Louisiana native and resident of New Orleans, is the founder and CEO of Trahan Architects. He divides his time between the firm’s studios in New Orleans and New York. Trahan is globally recognized for designs that exhibit technological innovation, material expression, and a quiet sense of beauty. He takes a rooted approach to architecture by understanding the culture, history, and ecology of each project and place to inform his firm’s designs.

Trahan was recognized in 2021 by the Chicago Athenaeum as Laureate of The American Prize for Architecture and in 2025 by the National Academy of Design as a National Academician. He is a member of AIA’s College of Fellows. He received The Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Award and was listed as one of the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices.

He has engaged broadly at such distinguished institutions as MIT, the University of Southern California, Tulane University, and Harvard University. In 2021, he was the Walton Critic at The Catholic University of America, delivering the lecture titled Peace Architecture: Designing for Healing and Connection. Trahan served for twelve years on the Board of Directors of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Trahan’s design leadership has resulted in a portfolio widely recognized for design excellence. He oversees the number-one-ranked design firm by Architect Magazine, the official publication of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Trahan Architects has built an extensive portfolio spanning diverse typologies, including the transformation of the Caesars Superdome, the Coca-Cola Stage at the Alliance Theatre, and the USA Pavilion for Expo 2025 Osaka. Trahan Architects’ work has garnered over one hundred international and national design awards, including eight National AIA Awards.

Parallel to his architectural practice, Trahan founded Fondation Trahan to advance the preservation and revitalization of culturally and ecologically significant sites and objects. Over the past decade, he has assembled a collection of more than 500 contemporary Japanese artworks, anchored by the most significant private collection of Raku tea bowls outside Japan. Through acquisition, curation, documentation, and loans, Fondation Trahan stewards the collection in support of cultural exchange and the enduring value of human creativity.