Starting From Zero: Reconstructing Downtown New York

Architect and social critic Michael Sorkin develops his own vision of the future lower Manhattan through a series of chronologically organized essays illustrated with full-color images of his own plans. Mixing his inimitable brand of social criticism with more personal reflections, Starting From Zero offers a striving challenge to the Ground Zero redevelopment plan recently chosen by New York's establishment insiders.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sorkin, Michael

Social Sciences

Routledge

Some Assembly Required

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. Whether laying out, manifesto-like, eleven necessary tasks for urban design, providing a fresh take on the Disneyfication of Times Square, grappling with sprawl, or blasting the nostalgic prescriptions of "new urbanist" communities (which he dubs "Reaganville"), Sorkin makes a compelling argument for an architecture and urbanism firmly grounded in both artistic expression and social purpose. Michael Sorkin is principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio and professor of architecture and director of the graduate urban design program at New York's City College. He is the author of Giving Ground (with Joan Copjec, 1999), Wiggle (1998), Exquisite Corpse (1994), and Variations on a Theme Park (1991), and his writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Metropolis, the New York Times Magazine, and other publications.

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Univ. of Minnesota Press

One of the best architecture critics writing today presents a new collection which previews the state of contemporary architecture and surveys the dramatic changes in the urban environment of the last decade.

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer (Monographs on contemporary architecture)

Whitney Libary of Design

‘Exquisite Corpse’ was a game played by the surrealists in which someone drew on a piece of paper, folded it and passed it to the next person to draw on until, finally, the sheet was opened to reveal a calculated yet random composition. In this entertaining and provocative book, Michael Sorkin suggests that cities are similarly assembled by many players acting with varying autonomy in a complicit framework. An unfolding terrain of invention, the city is also a means of accommodating disparity, of contextualizing sometimes startling juxtapositions. Sorkin’s aim is to widen the debate about the creation of buildings beyond the immediate issues of technology and design. He discusses the politics and culture of architecture with daring, often devastating, observations about the institutions and personalities who have dominated the profession over the past decade. Their preoccupation with the empty style of ‘beach houses and Disneyland’ has consistently trivialized the full constructive scope of contemporary architecture’s possibilities. Sorkin’s interventions range from the development scandals of New York where ‘skyscrapers stand at the intersection between grid and greed’, through the deconstructivist architectural culture of Los Angeles, to the work and ideas of architects, developers and critics such as Alvar Aalto, Norman Foster, Paul Goldberger, Michael Graves, Coop Himmelblau, Philip Johnson, Leon Krier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Rogers, Carlo Scarpa, James Stirling, Donald Trump, Tom Wolfe and Lebbeus Woods. Throughout Sorkin combines stinging polemic with a powerful call for a rebirth of architecture that is visionary and experimental—a recuperated ‘dreamy science’

Exquisite Corpse: Writings on Buildings

Verso

‘Exquisite Corpse’ was a game played by the surrealists in which someone drew on a piece of paper, folded it and passed it to the next person to draw on until, finally, the sheet was opened to reveal a calculated yet random composition. In this entertaining and provocative book, Michael Sorkin suggests that cities are similarly assembled by many players acting with varying autonomy in a complicit framework. As unfolding terrain of invention, the city is also a means of accommodating disparity, of contextualizing sometimes startling juxtapositions. Sorkin’s aim is to widen the debate about the creation of buildings beyond the immediate issues of technology and design. He discusses the politics and culture of architecture with daring, often devastating, observations about the institutions and personalities who have dominated the profession over the past decade. Their preoccupation with the empty style of ‘beach houses and Disneyland’ has consistently trivialized the full constructive scope of contemporary architecture’s possibilities. Sorkin’s intervetions range from the development scandals of New York where ‘skyscrapers stand at the intersection between grid and greed’, through the deconstructivist architectural culture of Los Angeles, to the work and ideas of architects, developers and critics such as Alvar Aalto, Norman Foster, Paul Goldberger, Michael Graves, Coop Himmelblau, Philip Johnson, Leon Krier, Frank Llyod Wright, Richard Rogers, Carlo Scarpa, James Stirling, Donald Trump, Tom Wolfe and Lebbeus Woods. Throughout Sorkin combines stinging polemic with a powerful call for a rebirth of architecture that is visionary and experimental—a recuperated ‘dreamy science’.

Exquisite Corpse: Writings on Buildings (Haymarket Series)

Verso Books

Twenty Minutes in Manhattan

Every morning, the architect and writer Michael Sorkin walks downtown from his Greenwich Village apartment through Washington Square to his Tribeca office. Sorkin isn't in a hurry, and he never ignores his surroundings. Instead, he pays careful, close attention. And in Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, he explains what he sees, what he imagines, what he knows―giving us extraordinary access to the layers of history, the feats of engineering and artistry, and the intense social drama that take place along a simple twenty-minute walk.

Sociology

NORTH POINT PRESS

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. This critical analysis of the official plans adopted by the University juxtaposed against Sorkin's "Other Plans" provides concrete evidence of his visionary ideals and what remarkable architecture and planning mean today.

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

Princeton Architectural Press

This important collection brings together noted Israeli, Palestinian, and American architects and urbanists to consider the physical future of Jerusalem and to 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. While the authors take a variety of approaches, all agree on the necessity of sharing the city amicably. Contributors are Ghiora Aharoni, Moustafa Bayoumi, and Jerrilyn D. Dodds; Ariella Azoulay; Rasem Badran; Stella Betts, David Leven, and David Snyder; M. Christine Boyer; Joan Copjec; Keller Easterling; Samira Haj; Rassem Khamaisi; Romi Khosla; Thom Mayne, Rose Mendez, and Caroline Barat; Deborah Natsios and John Young; Moshe Safdie; Mack Scogin; Michael Sorkin and Andrei Vovk; Achva Benzinberg Stein; Amir Sumaka'i Fink; Jafar Tukan; Dag Tvilde and Ali Ziadah; Eyal Weizman; James Wines; Lebbeus Woods; Oren Yiftachel and Haim Yacobi; and Omar Youssef.

The Next Jerusalem: Sharing the Divided City

The Monacelli Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sorkin, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sorkin, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sorkin, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Starting From Zero: Reconstructing Downtown New York

Starting From Zero: Reconstructing Downtown New York

Some Assembly Required

Some Assembly Required

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer (Monographs on contemporary architecture)

Exquisite Corpse: Writings on Buildings

Exquisite Corpse: Writings on Buildings (Haymarket Series)

Twenty Minutes in Manhattan

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

The Next Jerusalem: Sharing the Divided City