Building upon the recognition that contemporaneity is as much an epistemological and historical problem as it is a question of novelty, Sylvia Lavin discusses different cultural and social manifestations of the contemporary in relation to architecture. A leading figure in current debates on affect and mood, Lavin is known both for her scholarship and for her criticism in contemporary architecture and design. Lavin is working on her next book, The Flash in the Pan and Other Forms of Architectural Contemporaneity and a series of exhibitions on design culture of the late 1960s. She is an editor of Crib Sheets - a compilation of polemical writings - and author of Form Follows Libido? Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture. Sylvia Lavin is Professor of Architectural History and Theory in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA.