Lipstick, by Johnson

Everybody knows this one. The iconography of the lipstick is unique and has had no predecessors. It is one of those iconic buildings that has adopted their iconography as their official name. According to Philip Johnson the building features ‘only corner-offices’ as to justify its elliptical plan. The form would als remind at the oval forms in the Baroque… Well let’s forget about that.

The Lipstick Building made me think of the Paronoid Critical Method of Salvador Dali that Rem Koolhaas describes in ‘Delirious New York.’ If a lipstick can be used as an iconography of an office building, than the lips of Mae West can be used… as a sofa. 1986, and 1936.

Has Surrealism never died, and is it still alive in the use of iconography in architecture?

Lipstick