Sylvia Lavin

Ada Louise Huxtable asked "kicked a building lately?" and in this context it appears that critic Sylvia Lavin is asking readers to place their lips on buildings. But that is not the case. Kissing for Lavin is the merging of two dissimilar disciplines, such as architecture and video art. These two comprise the main examples (Pipilotti Rist and Doug Aitken, both at MoMA, coincidentally) for the author to argue for opening up architecture to new ideas and therefore leading it in new directions. It's a convincing argument that is aided by fairly accessible and short writing, the main "point," if you will, of Sarah Whiting's POINT series, of which this book is the first. Most interesting is Lavin's argument about treating the interior and exterior as separate realms. After reading it, I think it would be interesting to compile a list of buildings that kiss and ones that don't, in an effort to see what effects are gained from such a liberating position.… (meer)