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Modeling Messages: The Architect and the Model
The model is one of the oldest means of architectural representation and comes in an extravagant variety of forms, from miniaturizations of reality mesmerizing in their exactness to wildly energetic sculptural representations. Modeling Messages: The Architect and the Model is a study of the contemporary model, American and international, and its myriad uses in architectural practice. Among the illustrations are inventive designs by architects Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaas. Author Karen Moon discusses the meaning of the model for the architect, the relationship between model and building, and the impact of scale. She also explores how architects use models for presentation and the creation of a public image. In addition, she focuses on the practice of model making: the relationship between the architect and the maker; the materials and new technologies that are transforming model making.
- GenresArchitecture
240 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 17, 2023
At the beginning of her book “Modeling Messages – The Architect and the Model”, author Karen Moon says architectural models "have limitations" because "they cannot confine the onlooker to a single, selected image of the most attractive view". But in serious architecture, there is no such thing as the most attractive view - all views are equally important, and the whole point of a model is to let the project be seen in the round, without any attempt to deceive anyone. That is not at all a limitation, and it's worrying that the author of a book on architectural model making appears to hold such opinions. Nevertheless, there's no time like the present to consider architectural model-making as a manual craft, its role in history, and its renewed importance now that many architects are becoming impatient with the shortcomings of computer-generated imagery, which can be just as costly and time-consuming to make as models, yet completely incapable of allowing a project to be seen on all sides, physically rather than on a screen, and from any viewpoint.
Moon’s book is certainly rich in fascinating historical images or models. These tend to fall into two main categories: presentation models and in-house working models. Models that are specially made for big formal presentations to rich clients or for public exhibition can cost six-figure sums. Historically important models made by master craftsmen, such as the demountable model of Sir John Soane's Tyringham House (1793) by Joseph Parkins, may be conserved because of their intrinsic worth. Other models, much cheaper, are made in-house by architects as design aids and then discarded; the enormous number of study models that Denys Lasdun's office produced when he was working on the National Theatre, London (1964) are now just a great pile of wreckage (shown in a remarkable photograph that is somehow heartbreaking).
One difficulty with many of the photographs is that we can't see how big or small the models are because there's no context. The best pictures have people in them - not so much the commercial architects posing carefully (like Minoru Yamasaki standing between the twin towers of his ill-fated 1969 World Trade Center project) as the photographs of architects and clients at work on design development, unaware of the camera. Their body language, captured in a chance moment, can be very telling: a rapt Adolf Hitler drools at Albert Speer's model of the German Pavilion for the 1937 Paris World's Fair, with his pet architect murmuring smoothly in the dictator's ear. We see Eero Saarinen's assistant Kevin Roche clambering all over a large curved plywood study model of Saarinen's 1958 TWA terminal, rearranging entire sections of the project, observed by a somewhat less athletic Saarinen. A busy Rem Koolhaas is seen working outside in a Beijing courtyard, making some adjustments to a model of his CCTV HQ. These photographs show architects at work on complex three-dimensional spatial and functional ideas, even as deadlines loom; one of the most astonishing shows Antoine Predock en route to a presentation, somewhat late in the day making a model right there at his seat on the plane.
Other photographs show apron-wearing artisans hard at work in professional model-making workshops: people who have no personal interest in architecture and are just getting through the day. Then there are carefully posed publicity pictures of famous modelmakers like John Thorp (seen affectionately caressing his model of the cupola of Lutyens' 1933 cathedral in Liverpool) that conceal the reality of overworked, underpaid staff toiling through the night with deadlines to meet, as in the 1963 photograph of the Lester Associates workshop with rows of workmen slaving away at cutting tables and lathes.
Describing some of the latest digital modelmaking technologies, Moon hopes that such drudgery will eventually be eliminated and anyway, the models made by these professional workshops always have something impersonal about them. The models that architects and their staff make themselves show a far more palpable sense of commitment. Some of the examples illustrated here, by Daniel Libeskind, Odile Decq, Michael Sorkin, and others, embody the same creative spirit that goes into the project itself; no outside modelmakers can ever achieve that.
It's unfortunate that the book includes so many models that are not interesting at all, and I find it disconcerting that a commercial building like Peter Pran's 1996 tower for Jakarta in Indonesia can be blithely published in the same book as very thoughtful. poetic works like Kasimir Malevich's beautiful plaster "Architekton" model (Moscow, 1918). The only thing these two have in common is - they're both models; but that's not exactly what you'd call a discourse about architectural models. In fact the only point at which Moon finds some theoretical framework within which to place these widely diversified artefacts is as part of a disquisition on the question of scale.
Architects will certainly enjoy looking at some of the photographs, but it's hard to see what other purpose this book might serve. What it does show is that in the hands of the best architects, modelmaking is alive and well.
Moon’s book is certainly rich in fascinating historical images or models. These tend to fall into two main categories: presentation models and in-house working models. Models that are specially made for big formal presentations to rich clients or for public exhibition can cost six-figure sums. Historically important models made by master craftsmen, such as the demountable model of Sir John Soane's Tyringham House (1793) by Joseph Parkins, may be conserved because of their intrinsic worth. Other models, much cheaper, are made in-house by architects as design aids and then discarded; the enormous number of study models that Denys Lasdun's office produced when he was working on the National Theatre, London (1964) are now just a great pile of wreckage (shown in a remarkable photograph that is somehow heartbreaking).
One difficulty with many of the photographs is that we can't see how big or small the models are because there's no context. The best pictures have people in them - not so much the commercial architects posing carefully (like Minoru Yamasaki standing between the twin towers of his ill-fated 1969 World Trade Center project) as the photographs of architects and clients at work on design development, unaware of the camera. Their body language, captured in a chance moment, can be very telling: a rapt Adolf Hitler drools at Albert Speer's model of the German Pavilion for the 1937 Paris World's Fair, with his pet architect murmuring smoothly in the dictator's ear. We see Eero Saarinen's assistant Kevin Roche clambering all over a large curved plywood study model of Saarinen's 1958 TWA terminal, rearranging entire sections of the project, observed by a somewhat less athletic Saarinen. A busy Rem Koolhaas is seen working outside in a Beijing courtyard, making some adjustments to a model of his CCTV HQ. These photographs show architects at work on complex three-dimensional spatial and functional ideas, even as deadlines loom; one of the most astonishing shows Antoine Predock en route to a presentation, somewhat late in the day making a model right there at his seat on the plane.
Other photographs show apron-wearing artisans hard at work in professional model-making workshops: people who have no personal interest in architecture and are just getting through the day. Then there are carefully posed publicity pictures of famous modelmakers like John Thorp (seen affectionately caressing his model of the cupola of Lutyens' 1933 cathedral in Liverpool) that conceal the reality of overworked, underpaid staff toiling through the night with deadlines to meet, as in the 1963 photograph of the Lester Associates workshop with rows of workmen slaving away at cutting tables and lathes.
Describing some of the latest digital modelmaking technologies, Moon hopes that such drudgery will eventually be eliminated and anyway, the models made by these professional workshops always have something impersonal about them. The models that architects and their staff make themselves show a far more palpable sense of commitment. Some of the examples illustrated here, by Daniel Libeskind, Odile Decq, Michael Sorkin, and others, embody the same creative spirit that goes into the project itself; no outside modelmakers can ever achieve that.
It's unfortunate that the book includes so many models that are not interesting at all, and I find it disconcerting that a commercial building like Peter Pran's 1996 tower for Jakarta in Indonesia can be blithely published in the same book as very thoughtful. poetic works like Kasimir Malevich's beautiful plaster "Architekton" model (Moscow, 1918). The only thing these two have in common is - they're both models; but that's not exactly what you'd call a discourse about architectural models. In fact the only point at which Moon finds some theoretical framework within which to place these widely diversified artefacts is as part of a disquisition on the question of scale.
Architects will certainly enjoy looking at some of the photographs, but it's hard to see what other purpose this book might serve. What it does show is that in the hands of the best architects, modelmaking is alive and well.
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June 14, 2019great great
July 21, 2023
A desirable activity and worthy career aspiration. Facinating subject.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews