UCLA AUD presents inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award to Sylvia Lavin
Jul 7, 2026
UCLA Architecture and Urban Design is honored to present its inaugural Distinguished Faculty Award to Sylvia Lavin, who served as Professor and Chair at UCLA AUD from 1996 to 2006, and then as Director of the PhD in Architecture program. Lavin is currently Interim Dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture, which she joined in 2018 as a Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture. She is an accomplished author and curator, with work that explores the limits of architecture across a wide spectrum of historical periods.
The Distinguished Faculty Award celebrates those whose work has shaped the identity, trajectory, and legacy of UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, while extending the influence of the department far beyond the boundaries of the university.
UCLA AUD Chair Mariana Ibañez honored Lavin with the Distinguished Faculty Award on June 9, 2026, as part of AUD’s Rumble60 celebration. Lavin also presented as part of AUD's Rumble60 symposium, "You See LA," on June 9.
"Sylvia led the transformation of AUD into one of the field's most vital centers of critical thought and architectural inquiry," Ibañez said. "Sylvia's scholarship, curatorial work, and criticism have influenced generations of students, educators, and practitioners and helped define the terms of contemporary architectural discourse. Her commitment to rigorous inquiry, critical thinking, and the production of new forms of architectural knowledge helped establish the department as a leading center for architectural experimentation and debate, a legacy that continues to influence AUD today. Her influence continues to resonate through the ideas, institutions, and communities she helped shape."
Lavin is Interim Dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture (SoA). She is the recipient of an Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a member of the the Museum of Modern Art’s Committee on Architecture and Design and is Chair of the Program Committee and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Lavin's early books include Quatremère de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture (MIT Press, 1992)—an intellectual history of French eighteenth theories of the origins of architecture—and Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture (MIT Press, 2005), an exploration into the use of psychoanalysis as a design tool during the mid-20th century. Kissing Architecture (Princeton University Press, 2011) delves into the mutual attraction between architecture and other forms of contemporary art, while Flash in the Pan (AA Publications, 2015), focuses on the tension inherent in architecture’s love for the up-to-date with building’s obligation to endure. Building Amid the Trees, a history of the arboreal infrastructure of American architecture during the 19th century, a Writing Architecture series book (Anyone Corporation with MIT Press), is forthcoming.
Lavin’s exhibition "Everything Loose Will Land: 1970s Art and Architecture in Los Angeles," part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Presents initiative, highlighted a crucial, often overlooked era in LA’s design history while her "Architecture Itself and other Postmodernist Myths," held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, offered a critical account of an apparently all-too familiar era. During her time with Princeton SoA, she has curated several on-site exhibitions, including "Architecture Arboretum," which explored the architectural significance of trees in both drawings and the broader eco-system.
Lavin received her PhD from the Department of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University after having received fellowships from the Getty Center, the Kress Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Prior to her appointment at Princeton, Lavin was a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and the Director of the Critical Studies M.A. and Ph.D. program from 2007 to 2017.
Established as part of UCLA AUD’s 60th anniversary, the Distinguished Faculty Award recognizes faculty, administrators, and institutional leaders whose contributions have had a profound and lasting impact on UCLA AUD, architectural education, and the broader culture of architecture and urbanism. The award honors individuals whose leadership, vision, and commitment have strengthened the department's mission while advancing the intellectual, cultural, and civic role of architecture.
Recipients are recognized not only for their individual achievements, but also for their capacity to build institutions, foster communities of learning, support generations of students and faculty, and create the conditions through which architectural knowledge can advance and flourish. While the paths of recipients may differ, the award recognizes an enduring commitment to excellence, generosity, and the advancement of architecture as a cultural, educational, and public endeavor.
