In this collection of fleeting meditations on what Baudelaire championed (and Michael Fried chastised) as presentness, Lavin investigates the convergence of notions such as liveness, the provisional and the obsolete in revealing qualities of the contemporary. Three sets of essays, some published here for the first time, explore different forms of architectural time particularly as they shape the differences between history, theory and criticism as genres of writing. The first part focuses on ephemeral architectures in the 1960s, from discos to dioramas. The second takes a more distant view of the field in order to theorise on the central importance of apparently minor practices and ideas - such as curation and colour - to the longstanding structure of the discipline. The third part features essays instigated by current architectural events and developments with an eye towards understanding how they actively participate in the construction of the present.