Dezeen: "Fierce and brilliant architect Michael Sorkin dies of coronavirus
Sarah Abdallah
Eleanor Gibson, March 27 2020
Tributes have poured in for architect and critic Michael Sorkin, who has died aged 71 of complications caused by Covid-19.
Based in New York, Sorkin headed architecture firm Michael Sorkin Studio and was president of non-profit research group Terreform.
His death triggered shock and an outpouring of warm tributes from architects, critics and writers around the world.
"He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer"
"I am heartbroken. This is a great loss," tweeted New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. "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."
"Whether or not one agreed with Michael Sorkin didn't matter in the end," added Chicago Tribune critic Blair Kamin. "He was a great activist critic – fearless, unafraid to challenge received wisdom or powerful figures, and, because of his wit and insight, a pleasure to read."
"The architecture world has lost a brilliant mind," said Harriet Harriss, dean of New York's Pratt Institute School of Architecture.
Financial Times architecture correspondent Edwin Heathcote described Sorkin as a "fierce and brilliant critic, perhaps the best".