Joseph Giovannini

Mr. Sorkin, who died of the coronavirus, promoted social justice in his prodigious output of essays, lectures and designs.

This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Michael Sorkin, one of architecture’s most outspoken public intellectuals, a polymath whose prodigious output of essays, lectures and designs, all promoting social justice, established him as the political conscience in the field, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71.

His wife and only immediate survivor, Joan Copjec, said the cause was the coronavirus.

In lectures and in years of teaching, Mr. Sorkin inspired audiences and students to use architecture to change lives, resist the status quo and help achieve social equity. His motivational writings and projects helped reset the field’s moral compass.

With degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and a master’s in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he moved in 1973 from Cambridge to New York, a city he said he adored for its opera and toasted bagels. It remained his home for the rest of his life. …