Michael Sorkin was a mentor and a light to many of us; a true agitator of architectural discourse, he kept architects closer to the streets, to the social and political issues of our time.
Below are two contributions from Michael's friends as well as a note that Michael sent to the AA in 2014.
The following tribute was written by Eyal Weizman, AA Alumnus and Tutor:
Locked down in stunned, helpless isolation with the exit sign switched off, I heard that Michael had died, without a warning or a goodbye. The contemporary prophet of public space and urban conviviality died in a hospital -- one of the last places where physical proximity is still possible, indeed, unavoidable. The virus diagrams the kind of social interaction that Michael championed in a vibrant city that has now nearly totally closed down, the price of human contact having become too high.
On the evening when the horrible message arrived, the people of our London neighbourhood, seeking some form of communion, stood each at their own window to clap for the medical workers like those who were by Michael’s side in his last days, risking their lives to try to save his and ours. Michael was our family friend—Alma, my daughter, was spoilt being his god-daughter—and so we were at our window, simultaneously sobbing, clapping and hitting pots with wooden spoons, giving Michael the send-off we thought he’d appreciate. The rest of the mourning must be done in isolation—and my heart goes out to Joan who cannot benefit from the proximity of those that loved them dearly.
Michael was also my architectural godfather. In a number of small but crucially corrective interventions, he put me on my path. He read my books when they were still drafts, giving comments, helping find titles and publishers. Only a few weeks ago he took the time to campaign for me when I was not allowed to travel to the United States, just as he often did for others less privileged.
We met in 1994, when, as a young admiring student at the Architectural Association, I was one of those campaigning for him to be the new director of the school. When Michael finally won the vote and got the post, he decided to decline it, opting instead to pursue his own singular path: he set up his studio, founding the research organisation, Terreform, the publishing imprint UR (Urban Research); and became the Director of Graduate Design at the City College, where he was Distinguished Professor. In short he constructed on his own a polymorphous entity through which to realise various aspects of his wide urban visions. At the same time, he continued to advocate his ideas in a stream of essays and books, and to sketch them in numerous visionary schemes and drawings. (Many of the latter are still unpublished, but Joan assures me that they will be coming out soon.)
Drawing on the vocabulary of 1970s New York activism, he expanded the spectrum of architectural and urban action: sit-ins, town-hall-meetings, petitions, appeals, the writing of codes and bills of rights. Learning from his struggles with the kind of New York developers that now run the US, he brought his sense of urban justice, and feisty activism to Palestine, Northern Ireland and the US-Mexico border. Since architecture was part of the problem, it owed a certain debt and Michael encouraged architects to pay up by inventing solutions.
In 1998, an impish trickster, Michael seduced a group of Palestinian and Israeli architects and other intellectuals to a conference on occupied and segregated Jerusalem at a lakeside villa in Bellagio, Italy. It was here that I first met Suad Amiry, Rashid Khalidi, Omar Yusuf, and Ariella Azoulay. We listened together as Michael insisted, more optimistically than most of us, that we could use architecture to do something about this injustice, although he understood that, by itself, unaccompanied by the fundamental political changes we must all struggle for, architecture could do very little. His subsequent book-projects on Palestine “The Next Jerusalem”, “Against the Wall,” and “Open Gaza” demonstrate what he meant.
He was right, at a time when the grip of architecture tightens all around us, when the builders of walls, towers, and digital surveillance systems are in charge, and when authoritarianism is using the global health emergency to encroach on our civil liberties—we all need to channel something of Michael and continue the fight. He will now bring his to gods and angels. Go on Michael, give them hell!
This piece has been contributed by Katharine Heron, Professor Emeritus, University of Westminster -
I first met Michael Sorkin around 1974 at the AA when we were both invited as first-time teachers to join a remarkable group compiled by Graham Shane, and the following year we taught in a second year unit with David Greene. Michael was extraordinary – brilliant in so many ways – as a writer and critic, as a teacher, highly literate in political and cultural matters, and a skilled draughtsman with exceptional taste. He was hilariously funny, warm and generous, gregarious, and bounding with energy and enthusiasm. His political criticism was acute, accurate and fearless without mercy. In his early career, he paid a price for his criticism of establishment figures, and found himself constantly working between jobs – teaching but not tenured yet giving high profile lectures, writing, entering competitions, and developing his studio. As his international reputation grew, he travelled widely, and his Studio gained reputation as it became established. His projects were both research and rhetorical, but he wanted them to be realised. Over several decades he produced a series of brilliant books, and a mass of exquisitely developed projects, but it was the work in the Studio that was tragically cut short. He was a great friend over forty years, and his capacity for friendship included so many. The last time we saw him in New York, we sat with Joan on the rooftop of their apartment drinking champagne as the sun went down and the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge came up as if a theatre - on-axis but off-grid.
We would also like to share a note Michael sent us when he was made an AA Honorary Member in 2014:
I truly wish I could be there with you now to personally express my gratitude for this great honor. At the moment, I am sitting in my third studio review of the week in New York and could certainly could use a drink!
Being invited to join the membership of the AA has very special meaning for me. As many of you may know, I had the opportunity to become Chairman some years ago and – for personal reasons – was forced to decline. This is surely the greatest regret of my life and for years I was unable even to visit London, never mind to pass through the portals of Number 36. Ever since I discovered this marvelous place at the Summer Session of 1971, it was a dream to be part of it and it was a great gift to have had my first teaching experience there a few years later. The AA changed me - and the way I look at architecture - and I will, to the end of my days, lament the fact that I could not repay this debt by helping change it with my full energies.
Perhaps the future will hold other opportunities. At any rate, I now, once again, feel quite comfortable in the bar and hope to see many of you there in the near future. First round on me!
Again, my deep thanks. You can’t imagine how happy this makes me.
Cheers!