Michael Sorkin

1948, August 2-2020, March 26

United States

Michael Sorkin is the principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio in New York City, a design practice devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the city. Recent projects include master planning in Hamburg and Schwerin, Germany, planning for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, urban design in Leeds, England, campus planning at the University of Chicago and CCNY studies of the Manhattan waterfront and Far Rockaway and a large park in Queens Plaza. The studio is the recipient of a variety of awards, including three I.D. Awards and a Progressive Architecture Award. Professor Sorkin is the Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York. From 1993 to 2000 he was Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Previously, he has been professor at numerous schools of architecture including the Cooper Union (for ten years) and the Universities of Columbia, Yale (holding both Davenport and Bishop Chairs), Harvard, Cornell (Gensler Chair), Nebraska (Hyde Chair), Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Minnesota. Professor Sorkin lectures widely and is the author of many articles in a wide range of both professional and general publications and is currently contributing editor at Architectural Record and Metropolis. For ten years, he was the architecture critic of The Village Voice. His books include Variations on A Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse, Local Code, Giving Ground (edited with Joan Copjec), Wiggle (a monograph of the studio's work), Some Assembly Required, Other Plans, The Next Jerusalem, and After The Trade Center (edited with Sharon Zukin), Starting From Zero, and Analyzing Ambasz. Forthcoming in 2005 are Fifteen Minutes in Manhattan, Against The Wall, and Work on the City. Michael Sorkin was born in Washington, D.C. and received his architectural training at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.