Sylvia Lavin, “Architecture After Fire”

A lecture titled “Architecture After Fire,” delivered by Sylvia Lavin, examines the connection between American architectural modernism and the forest, not through the use of timber as a building material, but through modernism’s dependence on trees as media: as systems of information and communication, and as metaphor.

Focus of the Lecture

The talk follows the history of the white pine through episodes of deforestation, wildfire, and the emergence of the Chicago school. Through this trajectory, it traces a sequence of substitutions, each set in motion by fire, that transformed environmental catastrophe into aesthetic doctrine.

Central Argument

Lavin frames these substitutions as central to what she identifies as the primary function of modern architecture when considered as an artistic practice.