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Kissing Architecture (POINT: Essays on Architecture) by Sylvia Lavin (29-May-2011) Hardcover
"Kissing Architecture" explores the mutual attraction between architecture and other forms of contemporary art. In this fresh, insightful, and beautifully illustrated book, renowned architectural critic and scholar Sylvia Lavin develops the concept of "kissing" to describe the growing intimacy between architecture and new types of art--particularly multimedia installations that take place in and on the surfaces of buildings--and to capture the sensual charge that is being designed and built into architectural surfaces and interior spaces today. Initiating readers into the guilty pleasures of architecture that abandons the narrow focus on function, Lavin looks at recent work by Pipilotti Rist, Doug Aitken, the firm Diller Scofidio ] Renfro, and others who choose instead to embrace the viewer in powerful affects and visual and sensory atmospheres."Kissing Architecture" is the first book in a cutting-edge new series of short, focused arguments written by leading critics, historians, theorists, and practitioners from the world of urban development and contemporary architecture and design. These books are intended to spark vigorous debate. They stake out the positions that will help shape the architecture and urbanism of tomorrow. Addressing one of the most spectacular and significant developments in the current cultural scene, "Kissing Architecture" is an entertainingly irreverent and disarmingly incisive book that offers an entirely new way of seeing--and experiencing--architecture in the age after representation.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 23, 2014
While the book takes on a very rich, and original yet highly intriguing subject, it just really fell flat at times. I liked it, and was worth the read. I just found myself wanting more succulent detail. This book serves well as a survey of how architecture and art are related in terms of theory and physical execution.But it really is just an overview, and does not take the deep theoretical plunge I was really hoping for.
September 1, 2020
Lavin’s Kissing Architecture is an interesting look at the connectedness (kiss) between art and architecture. As I am currently studying the trope of metaphor (itself the momentary combination of two unrelated entities) reviewing architecture through an unusual, metaphorical, frame is of particular interest. Although her approach to the subject seems strained and forced at times (as in catachresis), there are plenty of moments in which her version of the combination of art and architecture provides an almost perfect explanation (for metaphor): “a theory of confounding mediums” – or - “a union of bedazzling convergence and identification during which separation is inconceivable yet inevitable.” Kissing architecture, like metaphor, is where ‘twoness’ results in ‘frisson.’
The frame generally serves her well, suggesting that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – that “the kiss” transcends two people kissing. Although she does not appear to mention it; Rodin’s sculpted kissers come immediately to mind – lips locked, their faces are hidden, their identities disappear – all that remains of the couple is “the kiss.”
Whilst the book pays particular attention to the relationship between capital and culture, and in particular multi-media installations (art applied to the surface of architecture – because – its surface is its “most kissable aspect”) it none the less offers a new way of ‘looking’ at building and the inferential meaning to be gained. However the single-minded focus risks implying not so much a ‘kiss’ as a ‘smother,’ where art sprawls itself across a submissive architecture. An architecture which seems too blank to bother responding. I think Lavkin aims to elevate architecture, and her examples definitely help lift it above obscurity, (like the kiss that awakens Sleeping Beauty) and yet, I wonder if the examples don’t risk unintentionally effacing architecture at the same time (more like the kiss that transforms frog to prince – thereby assuming the latter is better than the former).
The main take away for me is the idea that, by adopting a particular frame through which you look at architecture you can generate a paradigm shift (“a perceptual swerve”) and gain some wonderful new insights – but – as with all frames, you run the risk of looking at the subject in a particular way which prevents looking at it any other way. By drawing attention to one set of details, you indirectly masque another set, and as such, Lavkin’s ‘kiss’ becomes a game of seek and hide, simultaneously illuminating and overshadowing – kisses after all happen when your face is pressed against someone else’s and as such you can gaze deeply into their eyes, but nowhere else.
Still, this is in part what Lavkin is trying to say; concentrate! Change your perspective! Perspectives change! Austere modernism was once a “radical abstraction in pursuit of universality and utopia,” but is today “just banal accommodation” representing “a profound lack of character.” Kissing, is a nonlinguistic experiment which dissolves old hegemonies and has the potential to initiate new ones. Architecture can change, she says, and architects can change it.
Above all, then, Lavkin’s book is a siren’s call for a hookup. Now more than ever, she says, is the time for architecture to step outside the boundaries of its field, and be an initiator not just a recipient of cultural change, looking for mutual attractions among other fields who might enjoy “temporarily cohabiting” a space usually reserved for ‘us’ or ‘them,’ so that, as Lavkin suggests, we might enjoy each other’s ‘flavour.’
Overall, the book provides a curious affordance on architecture, is beautifully illustrated, and makes for an interesting read.
The frame generally serves her well, suggesting that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – that “the kiss” transcends two people kissing. Although she does not appear to mention it; Rodin’s sculpted kissers come immediately to mind – lips locked, their faces are hidden, their identities disappear – all that remains of the couple is “the kiss.”
Whilst the book pays particular attention to the relationship between capital and culture, and in particular multi-media installations (art applied to the surface of architecture – because – its surface is its “most kissable aspect”) it none the less offers a new way of ‘looking’ at building and the inferential meaning to be gained. However the single-minded focus risks implying not so much a ‘kiss’ as a ‘smother,’ where art sprawls itself across a submissive architecture. An architecture which seems too blank to bother responding. I think Lavkin aims to elevate architecture, and her examples definitely help lift it above obscurity, (like the kiss that awakens Sleeping Beauty) and yet, I wonder if the examples don’t risk unintentionally effacing architecture at the same time (more like the kiss that transforms frog to prince – thereby assuming the latter is better than the former).
The main take away for me is the idea that, by adopting a particular frame through which you look at architecture you can generate a paradigm shift (“a perceptual swerve”) and gain some wonderful new insights – but – as with all frames, you run the risk of looking at the subject in a particular way which prevents looking at it any other way. By drawing attention to one set of details, you indirectly masque another set, and as such, Lavkin’s ‘kiss’ becomes a game of seek and hide, simultaneously illuminating and overshadowing – kisses after all happen when your face is pressed against someone else’s and as such you can gaze deeply into their eyes, but nowhere else.
Still, this is in part what Lavkin is trying to say; concentrate! Change your perspective! Perspectives change! Austere modernism was once a “radical abstraction in pursuit of universality and utopia,” but is today “just banal accommodation” representing “a profound lack of character.” Kissing, is a nonlinguistic experiment which dissolves old hegemonies and has the potential to initiate new ones. Architecture can change, she says, and architects can change it.
Above all, then, Lavkin’s book is a siren’s call for a hookup. Now more than ever, she says, is the time for architecture to step outside the boundaries of its field, and be an initiator not just a recipient of cultural change, looking for mutual attractions among other fields who might enjoy “temporarily cohabiting” a space usually reserved for ‘us’ or ‘them,’ so that, as Lavkin suggests, we might enjoy each other’s ‘flavour.’
Overall, the book provides a curious affordance on architecture, is beautifully illustrated, and makes for an interesting read.
October 29, 2017
Free facade was free from conventional rules of architectural composition governing facade design. With walls no longer the primary means of support, and corners no longer requiring reinforcement, windows could stretch out and deviate from structural grids just as the outer skin—now mere insulation—could hang, free,
like a curtain. Le Cobusier
like a curtain. Le Cobusier
October 29, 2019
3.25
Except in the way it was formulated (very original, loved it!) the core concept of this book was something that I've already came across, but the analysis, being very focused it was quite in depth.
Except in the way it was formulated (very original, loved it!) the core concept of this book was something that I've already came across, but the analysis, being very focused it was quite in depth.
October 2, 2022
Some interesting precedents and images. The image quality in some was not the best and felt there was too much definition and emphasis on the idea of kissing which was a stretch in my opinion. Interesting to think about the dynamism of surfaces.
April 8, 2025
Absolutely loved the metaphor and figurative writing! Just wished for more of the metaphor in relation to/an expansion of it in application towards contemporary art exhibitions.
October 28, 2011
We wrote a review of this for Resonant City which is available here:
http://www.resonantcity.net/?p=352
Sylvia Lavin’s newest book, Kissing Architecture, offers an interesting proposition for artists and architects revolving around the act of kissing. Lavin outlines a theory of interface between architecture and other mediums; she explains how kisses between mediums create new affective conditions on the surfaces of objects and new ways of seeing or feeling the built environment. Kissing indicates a soft and temporary joining of two surfaces, two bodies reshaping and shifting context. A kiss is sensual, yes, but it is also ontological—temporarily changing the nature of being and blurring the lines of identity. In theory this idea is simple, but with the inherent conservatism of the architectural field her proposal may sound preposterous. She proposes that architects should operate outside of their comfort zones, learning to embrace multi-disciplinary practices and collaborations. The sensuality of a kiss becomes a metaphor for reshaping the surfaces of buildings and our experience of them.
http://www.resonantcity.net/?p=352
Sylvia Lavin’s newest book, Kissing Architecture, offers an interesting proposition for artists and architects revolving around the act of kissing. Lavin outlines a theory of interface between architecture and other mediums; she explains how kisses between mediums create new affective conditions on the surfaces of objects and new ways of seeing or feeling the built environment. Kissing indicates a soft and temporary joining of two surfaces, two bodies reshaping and shifting context. A kiss is sensual, yes, but it is also ontological—temporarily changing the nature of being and blurring the lines of identity. In theory this idea is simple, but with the inherent conservatism of the architectural field her proposal may sound preposterous. She proposes that architects should operate outside of their comfort zones, learning to embrace multi-disciplinary practices and collaborations. The sensuality of a kiss becomes a metaphor for reshaping the surfaces of buildings and our experience of them.
July 5, 2016
Narrow but compelling
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews