The collection documents the writings, design projects, academic work, and personal life of Michael Sorkin, his design firm Michael Sorkin Studio, and the non-profit urban consulting practice Terreform. The content spans from 1952 to 2020, with the bulk of the work focusing on the criticism and design work produced between 1978 and 2020. The collection contains drafts, manuscripts, contracts, and clippings of published and unpublished articles, books, poems, scripts, and other writings; lecture scripts and event materials; professional and personal correspondence; files on early and student life; and project files and related design and presentation materials, including approximately 2,175 drawings (primarily conceptual sketches and site plans).
The files included in the collection were likely organized and curated by Michael Sorkin, as well as Joan Copjec and Michael Sorkin's mother, Ruth Sorkin. Researchers may encounter occasional sticky notes on items added by Joan Copjec to provide context.
Research files refer to newspaper clippings, photocopies, and other reference materials.
Avery Drawings is currently closed to researchers and will reopen for appointments in Fall 2024.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Michael Sorkin (1948-2020) was an American architectural critic, educator, designer, and curator. Sorkin significantly impacted twentieth-century and contemporary discourse on architecture and urbanism by questioning the role of architecture in society. His design work, academic positions in the United States and Vienna, and his extensive body of publications provided him a public platform to widely share his criticism, design pedagogy, and views of architecture.
After studying at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and pursuing a Master in Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he graduated only in 1983), Sorkin moved to New York City in 1973 where he was based for the rest of his life. In the 1980s, as the architecture critic of The Village Voice and a contributing writer to various publications, including The Nation, Vogue, House and Garden, The Architectural Review, and Architectural Record, Sorkin became known for his signature wit and pointed critiques of architecture's facilitation of capital accumulation, taking aim at International Style, Postmodernism, politics, or architects such as Robert Venturi and Philip Johnson, amongst many others. His lifelong writing career earned him international recognition as a provocative voice in the field.
In the 1980s, Sorkin founded the eponymous architecture firm Michael Sorkin Studio (based in New York with offices in Shanghai and Xi'an, China), whose early projects largely were unbuilt speculative provocations, including a proposal for a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. Michael Sorkin Studio produced designs of housing, office, and teaching complexes, landscape and urban master plans, hotels, scientific centers, and religious structures around the world. Sorkin's foundation of the non-profit organization Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research in 2005 continued his leadership in architecture and design research and advocacy.
Michael Sorkin held over 20 professorships at universities across North America and Europe. Since 2000, Sorkin was a Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. His previous academic appointments included Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Gensler Chair at Cornell University, Hyde Chair at Nebraska University, Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan, Gilbert Chair at the University of Michigan, both the Davenport and Bishop Chair at Yale University, and professorships at the Architectural Association, Cooper Union, Harvard University, Sci-Arc, and Columbia University. By the time of his passing in 2020 due to COVID-19, Sorkin held an established position as a significant public intellectual in the field of architecture and urbanism, having published 20 major books and a significant number of articles in addition to pursuing his studio practice and engagement as an educator and curator.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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