On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism edited by Wilfried Wang, published by Park Books and University of Texas at Austin, 2022 (Amazon / Bookshop)Who Is the City For": Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago by Blair Kamin with photographs by Lee Bey, published by University of Chicago Press, 2022 (Amazon / Bookshop)In her contribution to On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism, "Critical Influence: The Influence of the Popular Architecture Critic on Architectural Decision-making," Kristen Harrison starts with a quote by Michael Sorkin: "I don't mean to trivialize either the function or the concept of criticism but ? just like architecture ? it must also be judged by its effects." I'll address that statement over the course of this post, but first I wanted to point out its origin. Sorkin said those words at the Architectural Association in London in February 2014, on the first day of a two-day symposium, "Critical Juncture," celebrating the RIBA Royal Gold Medal being given to historian and critic Joseph Rykwert. The symposium was organized by the AA, the V&A, and CICA, or International Committee of Architectural Critics, the last of which Rykwert was president of at the time (as of 2019, the latest update to the "Who's Who" section of the CICA website, the then-92-year-old was still president). Don't feel alone if your first reaction to seeing CICA is "...