Michael Sorkin, the noted architectural critic and intellectual powerhouse behind Michael Sorkin Studio and Terreform, has passed away due to complications resulting from COVID-19.

The news was shared via Twitter this afternoon by New York City architect Warren James (@wjames_com) and was confirmed to Archinect by Lesley Lokko, Dean of the The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York where Sorkin was a Distinguished Professor and Director Emeritus of Graduate Urban Design Program.

In a statement sent to Archinect, Dean Lokko wrote, "It is with profound sorrow that we learned earlier today of the passing of one of our most valued and most brilliant faculty members, Michael Sorkin, from complications brought on by COVID-19. The entire faculty, staff and students are united in paying tribute to one of the school's best-known and celebrated figures, whose contributions to teaching, scholarship and public thought are irreplaceable. He will be deeply missed by the entire community of The City College of New York."

The architect and critic Michael Sorkin has died. I am heartbroken. This is a great loss. He was so many things. He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer. He wrote with moral force about big ideas and about the granular experience of life at the level of the street.1/

— Michael Kimmelman (@kimmelman) March 26, 2020

Sorkin is widely celebrated as one of the top architectural minds of the last half-century and his influence has been felt across the world, particularly through his teaching.

Sorkin has held a variety of prestigious appointments at universities around the globe, including most recently at CCNY, where he taught since 2000. Sorkin also taught at Harvard University (1992, 2015), the Southern California Institute of Architecture (1988-90; 2014), University of South Florida (2011), Wuhan University (2007), University of Michigan (2006), North Carolina State University (2003), Auburn University (2003), University of Utah (2001), University of Texas (2000), Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1993-2000), SUNY Buffalo (1999), Pratt Institute (1999), University of Minnesota (1999), University of Nebraska (1992), Yale University (1990), Columbia University (1990-91), Cooper Union (1983-1993), University of Illinois Chicago (1986-87), and others.

Since the 1980s, Sorkin served as the architecture critic for The Village Voice in New York City while also contributing critical works to publications like Architectural Record and The Nation, among others. In 2009, Sorkin published Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, a set of reflections focused on the 20-minute walk Sorkin took everyday from his home in Greenwich Village to his studio in Tribeca. He has published nearly a dozen books in total, covering topics that range from urbanism to the Israeli border wall and issues of sustainability, urban planning, and urban history. Sorkin’s Variations on a Theme Park, a collection of contributed essays published in 1992 that highlights the changing nature of American urbanism, continues to be a touchstone of contemporary architectural theory and discourse read by architecture students across the globe.

The architecture world has lost a brilliant mind to #covid19: the acerbic + effervescent architect, urbanist + writer, Michael Sorkin, who taught at @PrattInstitute in the 90s. As Michael said of bad political leadership, “Let us not be complicit!” In his memory, we owe him that. pic.twitter.com/dCBaOuj6UW

— Dr. Harriet Harriss (@HarrietHarriss) March 26, 2020

Sorkin was the founder of his independent architectural and urban design practice, Michael Sorkin Studio, as well as of Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, a non-profit urban research studio and advocacy group founded in 2005 by Sorkin “to investigate the forms, policies, technologies, and practices that will yield equitable, sustainable, and beautiful cities for our urbanizing planet.”

Sorkin earned degrees from several top universities, including a BA from the University of Chicago in 1969, an MA in English from Columbia in 1970, and architecture degrees from Harvard and MIT in the 1970s.

News of Sorkin’s death has rocked the architecture community. Archinect will continue to highlight Sorkin’s legacy in future editorial efforts.

This is a developing story and Archinect will update this post as more information becomes available.