The fifty-fifth birthday party for Helen Dannenforth was held at Cumulus House. Helen was right—in the fey evening light, augmented with globule lamps in various colors and shaped like overgrown alien plants, these environs did indicate the evolution of a tender ideology. A recent installation of hers at the Tate Modern was similar in tone. Suspended alveolar sacs gave visitors the chance to climb inside the knitted webbing and sway, read, or nap for whatever duration they wished. A faint respiratory rhythm was also broadcast throughout Turbine Hall to impart the sensation of nestling within a pair of lungs. “I was charmed that tourists and commuters, away from their cubicles on lunch, would let down their guard in a public space the same as a private one,” she had said. The ambience was somehow oddly sterile. In search of her among her guests, I navigated a bespoke obstacle course of bankers, effete photographers with their gallerina companions, architects in thick glasses like a second pair of eyebrows layered over their eyebrows, and lazy cognoscenti.

They talked about art that has inspired architecture, architecture that has inspired film, literature that has inspired architecture, architecture that has inspired literature, musicians who have inspired artists who have inspired architects, arcane illustrations of vivisectionists and botanists that have inspired architecture, how psychoanalysis has influenced architecture and how architecture influences psychology, architecture during war and architecture during peace, the architecture of fashion, the architecture of cuisine, the architecture of children’s toys. They talked about the obsolescence of libraries, movie theaters, and journalism. They talked about curators and what would happen to a curatorial vocation in the digital era. They talked about innovation—thermal metals that breathe like a rubbery shark pelt, printing customizable chairs with fungi, neon electric tattoos that would blush with a touch. They talked about the weather. They talked about the parties they had been to and how boring those parties were and the parties they planned on attending and how boring those parties would be.

I observed Helen as she clung to her latest darling. As they mingled together with each group of guests, he ensured she was well lubricated with wine, smiled benignly but not enough to be ingratiating, mentioned a story he had heard on public radio. She was gracious, but also intimidating as per normal in a backless Chanel dress, Hermès bangles, and Louboutin heels. Despite her favorite’s ministrations, he was inadequate to stop her increasing unsteadiness on those heels. They dug into a patch of sod and she stepped out of them. Their two red soles stranded in the grass looked like the undersides of tongues. Conversations drifted on to the topic of the hostess, on whether she was sleeping with that attractive man she was mentoring (“They’re very cozy”), whether she had slept with past mentees (“They tend to be male”), whether she was sleeping with her ex-husband (“No, he’s investigating the tribal beats of Balinese rain drum music in Indonesia”), whether she had slept with a Saudi prince when she was in the Middle East (“He gave her Lorraine Schwartz earrings worth a mil”).