Michael Sorkin

Early career

Sorkin was house architecture critic for The Village Voice in the 1980s, and he authored numerous articles and books on the subjects of contemporary architecture, design, cities, and the role of democracy in architecture.^[5][11][12]

Academia

Sorkin was an educator at the collegiate level. He held positions of professor of urbanism and director of Institute of Urbanism of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna from 1993 to 2000,^[13][14] He was a visiting professor to many schools, including, for ten years, the Cooper Union in New York. Sorkin also held the Hyde Chair at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Architecture,^[15] the Davenport Chair at Yale University School of Architecture,^[16] and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professorship, University of Michigan. He was a guest lecturer and critic at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London,^[17] Harvard Graduate School of Design,^[18] Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning,^[19] University of Illinois: Urbana Champaign,^[20] Aarhus School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark,^[21] and the London Consortium.^[22] He also taught at a number of institutions, including Columbia University, London's Architectural Association, and Harvard University.^[5]

Dedicated to architectural education for social change, Sorkin oversaw fieldwork in distressed environments such as Johannesburg, South Africa and Havana, Cuba. He co-organized "Project New Orleans" with collaborators Carol McMichael Reese and Anthony Fontenot, to support the post-Katrina city.^[23] In 2008, Sorkin was appointed Distinguished Professor of Architecture of the City University of New York.^[24]

Design practice

He was a principal in the Michael Sorkin Studio. The studio in New York City focuses primarily on professional practice in the urban public realm.^[25] Sorkin designed environmental projects in Hamburg, Germany, and proposed master plans for the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, and the Brooklyn waterfront and Queens Plaza in New York City.^[26] His urban studies have been the subject of gallery exhibits, and in 2010, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in architecture.^[27][28] Sorkin presented regularly at regional, national, and international conferences, and he served as adviser and juror on numerous professional committees, including The Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, The Aga Khan Trust for Culture's Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Chrysler Design Award, the New York City Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture, Architectural League of New York, and in the area of design writing and commentary, for Core 77.^{[29][30][31][32][33]}

Sorkin was the co-president of the Institute for Urban Design, an education and advocacy organization, and vice president of the Urban Design Forum in New York.^[34]

Writing and publishing

Sorkin had a broad career as an architecture writer. He wrote on the topics of contemporary architecture and urban dynamics, along the dimensions of environmentalism, sustainability, pedestrianization, public space, urban culture, and the legacy of modernist approaches to urban planning. He was a member of the International Committee of Architectural Critics.^[49] For ten years, Sorkin was architecture critic for The Village Voice, and he wrote for Architectural Record, The New York Times, The Architectural Review, Metropolis, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, Architectural Review, and The Nation.^{[5][50][51][29]} As a volume editor, he organized multi-authored publications, and he contributed essays to a range of architecture publications. He also authored 20 books.^[5][52]

Death

Sorkin died on March 26, 2020, from complications brought on by COVID-19 in Manhattan.^[3] His death was among the design profession's most prominent losses during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — making news internationally and met with an outpouring of tributes and obituaries in mainstream, leftist, and architectural media.^{[3][5][53][54]}

Awards and recognitions

• 2009, 2010: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences^[55]
• 2010: Graham Foundation Architecture Award^[56]
• 2011 Graham Foundation, for New York City (Steady) State with Robin Balles and Christian Eusebio.^[57]
• 2013: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Design Mind Award.^[58]
• 2015: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in Architecture, Planning and Design^[59]

Books

• Go Blow Your Nose (1981)^[60]
• Exquisite Corpse: Writing on Buildings (1991)^[61]
• Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (1992)^[62]
• Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42° N Latitude (1993)^[63]
• Traffic in Democracy (1997)^[64]
• Some Assembly Required (2001)^[65]
• After the World Trade Center: Rethinking New York City (2002)^[66]
• The Next Jerusalem: Sharing the Divided City (2002)^[67]
• Pamphlet Architecture 22: Other Plans (2002)^[68]
• Starting from Zero: Reconstructing Downtown New York (2003)^[69]
• Against the Wall: Israel's Barrier to Peace (2005)^[70]
• Indefensible Space: The Architecture of the National Insecurity State (2008)^[71]
• Twenty Minutes in Manhattan (2009)^[72]
• All Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities (2011)^[73]
• New Orleans Under Reconstruction: The Crisis of Planning (2014)^[74]
• Beyond Petropolis: Designing a Practical Utopia in Nueva Loja (2015)^[75]
• What Goes Up: The Right and Wrongs to the City (2018)^[76]

Essays and articles

• Can China's Cities Survive? in Terreform (ed.) Letters to the Leaders of China: Kongjian Yu and the Future of the Chinese, pp. 8–17.
• Dwelling Machines in Design Quarterly (1987)^[77]
• The Domestic Apparatus in Ranalli, G., "George Ranalli : buildings and projects." Princeton Architectural Press (1988)^[78]
• Ciao Manhattan in New York Architecture: 1970 to 1990 (1989)^[79]
• Forward in Vanlaethem, F.,"Gaetano Pesce : architecture, design, art." New York : Rizzoli (1989)^[80]
• Nineteen Millenial Mantras in Architecture in Transition: Between Deconstruction and New Modernsim (1991)^[81]
• Preface to Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates: Buildings and Projects 1967-1992 (1992)^[82]
• Ten for TEN in TEN Arquitectos (Firm), "TEN Arquitectos: Enrique Norten, Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta." New York: Monacelli Press (1998)^[83]
• Introduction: Traffic in Democracy in Giving Ground: The Politics of Propinquity (1999)^[84]
• Frozen Light in Friedman, M. (ed.), "Gehry talks : architecture + process." New York : Rizzoli (1999)^[85]
• The Measure of Comfort in Comfort: Reclaiming Place in a Virtual World (2001)^[86]
• Lunch with Emilio in Ambasz, E. & Dodds, J., (eds.), "Analyzing Ambasz." New York, Monacelli Press (2004)^[87]
• More or Less in The HOME House Project: The Future of Affordable Housing (2004)^[88]
• With the Grain in Whereabouts: New Architecture with Local Identities (2004)^[89]
• Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, Cars, Dolphins, and Architecture in Lewallen, C., Seid, S., Lord, C., & Ant Farm (Design group)(eds.),"Ant Farm, 1968–1978." Berkeley: University of California Press (2004)^[90]
• The Second Greatest Generation in Saunders, W. S., & Frampton, K. "Commodification and spectacle in architecture: A Harvard design magazine reader." Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, pp. 22–33.^[91]
• Saratoga Springs! in Saratoga (2009)^[92]
• Essay in In/formed by the land: The architecture of Carl Abbott (2013)^[93]
• Foreword: Who Is Aragonés? in Miguel Ángel Aragonés (2013)^[94]