10. Sylvia Lavin - "How Architecture Stopped Being the 97-Pound Weakling and Became Cool"

In this article, Sylvia Lavin attempts to construct a polemic understanding of "coolness" in recent architecture. The effect of coolness is to be perceived. The cause of coolness is somewhat mysterious and perhaps arbitrary. According to Lavin, Elvis Costello owes [at least some portion of] his coolness to his glasses. This doesn't mean in any way that glasses will make someone else cool.

The obvious criticism seems to be that "cool" is very subjective. And Lavin's lack of acknowledgment to that fact betrays her as a social elitist. This calls her entire argument into question. Architects and academics who may have thought themselves cool prior to this vaguely delineated contemporary era of "coolness" will surely take exception.