Publications

Published by Verso Books, July 2011

ISBN: 9781844673230

All Over the Map is Michael Sorkins urgent response to radical changes in contemporary architecture and the built environment since 9/11. Characteristically polemic, incisive and energetic, these essays explore pressing questions of architectural and urban design, and critical issues of public space and participation. .

20 Minutes in Mahattan

By Michael Sorkin

Published by Verso Books, June 2009

ISBN: 9781844673230

20 Minutes in Manhattan is about the walk from Michael Sorkin's apartment in Greenwich Village to his studio in Tribeca which takes about twenty minutes, depending upon the route and whether he stops for a coffee and the Times. Invariable, though, it begins with a trip down the stairs.

Indefensible Space:
The Architecture of the National Insecurity State

By Michael Sorkin

Published by Routledge, October 2007

ISBN-10: 0415953685

Indefensible Space explores the increasing envelopment of public space and life by an architecture of security/paranoia. From the most literal level, barriers in front of buildings, to more abstract levels, enhanced surveillance of public spaces.

Against the Wall:
Israel's Barrier to Peace

By Michael Sorkin (editor), Suad Amiry, Ariella Azoulay, Terry Boullata, Mike Davis, Sari Hanafi, Stephanie Koury, Dean MacCannell, Ruchama Marton, Adi Ophir, Rebecca Solnit, Anita Vitullo, and Eyal Weizmann

Published by New Press, November 2005

ISBN: 1565849647

From the Publisher: Called a "security fence" by the Israeli government and the "apartheid wall" by Palestinians, the barrier currently under construction in the West Bank has been the subject of intense controversy since the first olive tree was uprooted in its path. In violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice and a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly, the structure juts deep inside Palestinian territory, altering not only the geographical landscape, but the political one as well.

Analyzing Ambasz

By Michael Sorkin (editor), Jerrilynn Dodds, Peter Hall, Catherine Ingraham, Dean MacCannell, Felicity D. Scott, Lauren Sedofsky, Anthony Vidler, James Wines and Lebbeus Woods

Published by Monacelli Press, June 2004

ISBN: 1580931359

From the Publisher: In this penetrating collection of essays, prominent scholars and architects take up the challenge and set about rigorously "analyzing Ambasz." Anthropologist Dean MacCannell, for example, reconsiders the presence of myth in Ambasz’s work by drawing on the research of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes in order to understand Ambasz’s mythmaking as something more than merely producing work that has a mystical, spiritual feel.

Starting from Zero - Meditations on Reconstructing New York (Paperback)

By Michael Sorkinn

Published by Roultledge, April 2003

ISBN: 1565849647

From the Publisher: The reconstruction of the World Trade Center's ruins will undoubtedly be one of the most expensive planning and construction efforts in history, and certainly the most publicized event of its kind. And what emerges will have an enormous impact on all New Yorkers. But in assessing the result, the paths that were not considered are just as important as the ones that were.

The Next Jerusalem - Sharing the Divided City (Paperback)

By Michael Sorkin

Published by Monacelli Press, December 2003

ISBN: 1580931006

Book Description: In this new collection, Israeli, Palestinian, and American architects and urbanists consider the physical future of Jerusalem and offer specific proposals for making the city functional, beautiful, and physically generous to its inhabitants' needs. The essays focus on issues of ecology, preservation, neighborhood development, and open space, rather than on politics per se. While the authors take a variety of approaches, all agree on the necessity of sharing the city amicably. Contributors include Lebbeus Woods, M. Christine Boyer, Samira Haj, Achva Stein, Moshe Safdie, Thom Mayne, Mack Scogin, and Jafar Tukan.

Edited with Sharon Zukin

Published by Routledge, April 2002

ISBN: 1565849647

From the Publisher: The September 11 attacks transformed all of New York City, not just the historic financial district of Lower Manhattan. In After the World Trade Center, the eminent social critics Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin call on eighteen of New York's best urbanists to consider the attack and its aftermath in the broadest context. These essays provide a panoramic social portrait of the city at a new crossroads, one that both reflects New York's pre-eminent role as a financial and cultural capital and reveals the fault lines under the last few years of rapid growth.

Pamphlet Architecture 22: Other Plans: University of Chicago Studies, 1998-2000 (Paperback)

By Michael Sorkin

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, October 2001

ISBN: 1568983093

From the Publisher: Architect, writer, teacher-and agent provocateur-Michael Sorkin was commissioned by the University of Chicago in 1998 to produce an "alternative" master plan for its architectural revitalization. His studio had barely begun before they were dropped from the process. In the capacity of concerned alumnus, however, Sorkin and his group soldiered on and, in Pamphlet Architecture 22, present their background studies and proposed schemes, shown here in models and colorful drawings.

Some Assembly Required (Paperback)

by Michael Sorkin

Published by University of Minnesota Press, November 2001

ISBN: 0816634831

From the Publisher: Michael Sorkin is widely hailed as one of the best architecture critics writing today. Iconoclastic and often controversial, he is a witty, entertaining, yet ultimately serious writer. In this new collection, Sorkin reviews the state of contemporary architecture and surveys the dramatic changes in the urban environment of the past decade. From New York to New Delhi, from Shanghai to Cairo, Sorkin offers a sweeping assessment of the impact of globalization, environmental degradation, electronic media, rapid growth, and the legacies of modernist planning.

Giving Ground - The Politics of Propinquity (Paperback)

Edited with Joan Copjec

Published byVerso, January 1999

ISBN: 1859841341

From the Publisher: The third volume in the S series is prompted by two phenomena whose paradoxical convergence is currently altering our experience and conception of urban relations and, indeed, the very planning of cities. On the one hand, economic, technological, and cultural forces of globalization push toward conditions of homogenization and deterritorialization, while on the other, a surging politics of identity barricades various groups behind particularist claims, and ignites violent persecutions. The covert relation between these phenomena, whereby territory/ground is both disavowed or abstracted and jealously reclaimed, is the focus of the essays in this volume.

Michael Sorkin Studio: Work in Progress Series (Paperback) 1998

by Michael Sorkin

Published by Monacelli Press, Incorporated, October 1998

ISBN: 1885254253

From the Publisher: This monograph documents over a decade's worth of projects from this important New York-based firm. Although urban areas are most frequently the subject of the Studio's iconoclastic rejuvenation, an attention to nature and natural form is nonetheless ubiquitous. From the biomorphic Governor's Island proposal to the unabashed representationalism of the Beached Houses, from the luminescent tubers of the Miira installation to the neurological networks of the Neurasia project, the Studio combats the sprawl of automobile-centric urbanism with a decidedly organic vocabulary.

Local Code - The Constitution of a City at 42 Degrees North Latitude (Paperback)

Edited with Joan Copjec

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, January 1996

ISBN: 1878271792

"Local Code is a prescription for urban health that describes the rules for making an ideal city.... Highly precise, technical, and regulatory". -- Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Architectural Record

Exquisite Corpse - Writing on Buildings (Paperback)

by Michael Sorkin

Published by Verso, September 1994

ISBN: 0860916871

In this group of essays, which are republished from The Village Voice and a few other journals, Sorkin addresses most of the important issues, figures, and events in the architectural culture of New York City from the last decade: Philip Johnson, Deconstruction, Donald Trump, Postmodernism, etc. Some of the book is sheer filler (amusing definitions of architectural terms), but most of the writing is impassioned and clever, fulfilling a prescription for architectural criticism that is sorely needed in this country.-- Peter Kaufman, Boston Coll.

Variations on a Theme Park: Scenes from the New American City (Paperback)

by Michael Sorkin

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, December 1991

ISBN: 0374523142

Eight essays by architects and academics criticize as elitist and alienating such contemporary urban and extra-urban phenomena as mega-malls, historical re-creations and gentrification. Margaret Crawford uses Canada's West Edmonton Mall as a paradigm of the consumption-oriented pleasure dome. Langdon Winner offers a chilling analysis of Silicon Valley ("a vast suburb with no central city to give it meaning"), while Neil Smith discusses the greed and injustices that accompany the gentrification of New York's Lower East Side. And M. Christine Boyer dissects New York's South Street Seaport as an example of "historicized, commodifed, and privatized places."

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates - Buildings and Projects, 1967-1992 (Hardcover)

Edited with Mildred F. Schmertz

Published by Rizzoli International Publications, May 1992

ISBN: 0847814807

From the Publisher: This monograph spans Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer's entire history, including their restorations of distinguished older buildings and their designs for distinctive new structures. Detailed descriptions and numerous illustrations accompany the built work, significant unrealized projects, and commissions now in progress. A catalogue of work and a bibliography complete this volume.