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Adjunct Assistant Professor Marina Correia B Arch ’06 is the inaugural Michael Sorkin Visiting Distinguished Lecturer at the Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

Made possible by an initial gift by Mark A. Willis and Carol A. Willis, the position allows a distinguished senior designer or scholar with expertise in urbanism to spend a semester at the Spitzer School to teach a seminar or studio. The lectureship is in keeping with the vision of Sorkin (1948-2020), distinguished professor and director emeritus of Spitzer’s graduate urban design program, and is intended to encourage conversations about the history of urbanism, and the current problems and potentials of urban environments and architecture.

A practicing architect, activist and scholar in the history and theory of architecture and urbanism, Correia was selected by a committee consisting of Spitzer School Dean Marta Gutman, Chair and Associate Professor Sean Weiss, and Professor Julio Salcedo-Fernandez, director of the graduate program in urban design.

“She fulfills the mandate of the endowment—to bring a colleague to Spitzer who will introduce new perspectives and diverse talents in keeping with the times and changing demographic of our field,” said Gutman. “She is eager to bring her perspective on cities, social justice, and equity to bear on urban design at Spitzer; she is also dedicated to keeping Michael’s spirit alive at Spitzer. Marina was inspired by him as a teacher, writer, critic, and public intellectual, and she knew him, having studied with him at Spitzer. Like Michael, Marina is a brilliant teacher, beloved by her students and highly respected by her peers.”

Correia first encountered Sorkin in 2006, when she was a fourth-year undergraduate student at the Spitzer School and he was leading an initiative on New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “That was my first introduction to urban design, and it was through the lens of Michael Sorkin,” she said. “He presented this beautiful combination of thinking and activism and drawing everything together. This was a very foundational experience.”

In the spring 2025 semester, Correia teaches a course in “Critical Discourses on Urban Form: Modernity to the Present.” This course will offer an overview of foundational urban design topics from the 20th and 21st centuries with a focus on the relationship between urban form and culture. Using Sorkin’s seminal essay “The End(s) of Urban Design” as a starting point, Correia will lead her students through a review of authors most strongly associated with Sorkin’s viewpoints.

“I tried to come up with a course that really pursues the legacy of urban design that Michael Sorkin gave us, bringing to students the creative energy that [he] used to bring,” she explained. “I’m doing that by starting the course with texts by authors that he was mostly occupied with. I invited a few lecturers who can contribute through dialogue in class as well. Building a community of knowledge is something that I think is very close to the culture of education that Michael worked to nourish.”

After completing her B Arch at CCNY, Correia earned her master’s degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and her doctorate in the history and fundaments of architecture and urbanism from the University of Sao Paulo. The co-founder of Atelier Architecture and Urban Design, an international practice based in New York and Rio de Janeiro, she has also taught at California State Polytechnic University, Columbia University, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Pratt Institute, and the Rhode Island School of Design.

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Syd Steinhardt
212-650-7875
ssteinhardt1@ccny.cuny.edu