Architecture Words 13: Flash in the Pan

In this collection of meditations on what Baudelaire championed (and Michael Fried chastised) as presentness, Lavin investigates the convergence of notions such as liveness, the provisional and the obsolete in revealing qualities of the contemporary. Three sets of essays explore different forms of architectural time, particularly as they shape the differences between history, theory and criticism as genres of writing.

Architecture Words is a series of texts and important essays on architecture written by architects, critics and scholars. Like many aspects of everyday life, contemporary architectural culture is dominated by an endless production and consumption of images, graphics and information. Rather than mirror this larger force, this series of small books seeks to deflect it by means of direct language, concise editing and beautiful, legible graphic design. Each volume in the series offers the reader texts that distil important larger issues and problems. The words are edited and the pages designed in a way that acknowledges the ability of graphic and printed forms to communicate architectural ideas; not only the ideas contained within each volume, but also the enduring power of written ideas more generally to challenge and change the way all architects think.