Cocktails & Conversations
November 18, 2016 Center for Architecture, New York City
The Pairing:
Michael Murphy, MASS Design Group
Michael Sorkin, Michael Sorkin Studio
Cocktail designed by:
Toby Cecchini, Bartender + Author
Michael Murphy, Co-founder and Executive Director, MASS Design Group
Michael Murphy is the executive director and co-founder of MASS Design Group, an architecture and design collaborative with offices in Boston and Kigali, Rwanda. As a designer, writer, and teacher, his work investigates the social and political consequences of the built world. Murphy focuses on how environments shape behavior, and his research and writing advocate for a new empowerment in architecture that calls on architects to consider the ethical nature of their design decisions while simultaneously searching for beauty and meaning.
Murphy has taught at Columbia's Graduate School of Preservation and Planning, Wentworth Institute of Technology, The Boston Architectural College, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His theoretical and historical essays on architecture have been widely published and MASS's work has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Fast Company, The Atlantic, Wired, Mark Magazine, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Detail, and many others. MASS was the recipient of the Zumbtobel Group Prize, was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and was a finalist for the TED Prize and the Buckminster Fuller Prize. Murphy recently gave a TED talk at the 2016 Annual TED Conference.
Murphy is from Poughkeepsie, NY and earned a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Chicago.
Michael Sorkin, Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio
Michael Sorkin is President of Terreform, a collaborative group of designers, social scientists, and urban researchers with experience in academia, private practice, public interest organizations, government and community activism. Sorkin is an architect and urbanist whose practice spans design, criticism, and pedagogy. Since 2000, Sorkin has been Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. He is the architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor at Architectural Record, and author or editor of twenty books. Sorkin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the recipient of the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Mind Award, and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow. He is also Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, an international design practice that works in close collaboration with Terreform.
Toby Cecchini, Bartender & Author
Toby Cecchini is a writer and bartender based in New York City. He has written on food, wine and spirits for GQ, Food and Wine, and The New York Times. His first book, Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life, was published in 2003. He is currently at work on his second book, a travelogue of spirits based on his travels for The New York Times' Living and travel magazines. He began bartending at the Odeon in 1987, where he is credited with creating the internationally recognized version of the Cosmopolitan cocktail in New York. He followed that with stints in several bars including Passersby, which he owned until 2008. In 2013 he reopened the shuttered Long Island Bar in Cobble Hill Brooklyn.
The (Improved) Liberal Cocktail
2 oz. Ragtime Rye, New York Distilling
0.5 oz. sweet vermouth
0.25 oz. Bigallet China-China Amer
3 dashes Pernod Absinthe
Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass over ice and strain into a double old-fashioned glass with one large ice cube.
Garnish with a twist of lemon.
Michael Murphy, MASS Design Group
Michael Sorkin, Michael Sorkin Studio
Cocktail designed by:
Toby Cecchini, Bartender + Author
Michael Murphy, Co-founder and Executive Director, MASS Design Group
Michael Murphy is the executive director and co-founder of MASS Design Group, an architecture and design collaborative with offices in Boston and Kigali, Rwanda. As a designer, writer, and teacher, his work investigates the social and political consequences of the built world. Murphy focuses on how environments shape behavior, and his research and writing advocate for a new empowerment in architecture that calls on architects to consider the ethical nature of their design decisions while simultaneously searching for beauty and meaning.
Murphy has taught at Columbia's Graduate School of Preservation and Planning, Wentworth Institute of Technology, The Boston Architectural College, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His theoretical and historical essays on architecture have been widely published and MASS's work has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Fast Company, The Atlantic, Wired, Mark Magazine, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Detail, and many others. MASS was the recipient of the Zumbtobel Group Prize, was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and was a finalist for the TED Prize and the Buckminster Fuller Prize. Murphy recently gave a TED talk at the 2016 Annual TED Conference.
Murphy is from Poughkeepsie, NY and earned a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Chicago.
Michael Sorkin, Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio
Michael Sorkin is President of Terreform, a collaborative group of designers, social scientists, and urban researchers with experience in academia, private practice, public interest organizations, government and community activism. Sorkin is an architect and urbanist whose practice spans design, criticism, and pedagogy. Since 2000, Sorkin has been Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. He is the architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor at Architectural Record, and author or editor of twenty books. Sorkin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the recipient of the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Mind Award, and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow. He is also Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, an international design practice that works in close collaboration with Terreform.
Toby Cecchini, Bartender & Author
Toby Cecchini is a writer and bartender based in New York City. He has written on food, wine and spirits for GQ, Food and Wine, and The New York Times. His first book, Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life, was published in 2003. He is currently at work on his second book, a travelogue of spirits based on his travels for The New York Times' Living and travel magazines. He began bartending at the Odeon in 1987, where he is credited with creating the internationally recognized version of the Cosmopolitan cocktail in New York. He followed that with stints in several bars including Passersby, which he owned until 2008. In 2013 he reopened the shuttered Long Island Bar in Cobble Hill Brooklyn.
2 oz. Ragtime Rye, New York Distilling
0.5 oz. sweet vermouth
0.25 oz. Bigallet China-China Amer
3 dashes Pernod Absinthe
Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass over ice and strain into a double old-fashioned glass with one large ice cube.
Garnish with a twist of lemon.