IN THE Lipstick Building, Philip Johnson put forth an even more heretical proposition than the assertion that applied symbolism was more interesting than structural expression: they dared to say that architecture was a game of passing styles, more akin to fashion than a search for perfect forms. Johnson began to refer to a building’s exterior cladding as “heavy dress,” implying that architectural style had no more real significance than hemline lengths. Such talk made the architects who were looking to add their designs to the canon of twentieth-century architecture nervous. But if fashion is so transient, why does the Lipstick work so hard to be a singularity?