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INTRODUCTION
this book explores the history of the physical architectural model
and the incredible value these objects maintain in the hands of their
users. For over five hundred years architects have employed models
as tools to test, refine, and illustrate their ideas about architecture in
three dimensions. But these uses do not encompass the entire scope
of models’ utility to also signify, simulate, record, instruct, inspire,
and generate architectural designs. What makes the physical architectural model an intriguing object of study is that all these different applications and their methods of construction have continued
to evolve over time. Beginning with the earliest human artifacts, this
book follows an intriguing narrative of discovery about the practical and cultural factors motivating the development of the model’s
different uses. Rigorously researched and informed by the latest academic findings, The Architectural Model is written to help orient the
reader in the study of this important cultural object, its development,
and its continued utility from antiquity up to the present.
The popularity of the physical architectural model is certainly
proven by its longevity. As early as the Twelfth Dynasty (2055–1650
bce) of ancient Egypt, three-dimensional models of architecture were
employed not only in funerary and dedicatory practices but also as
descriptive tools in design and construction.1 The attractiveness of the
model is that it, unlike drawings or other two-dimensional representations of buildings—also known from antiquity2—permits users to
see before them an entire structure, the volumes of its spaces, and its
constituent parts in three dimensions, including the size and location
of the openings, its materials, and even its methods of construction.
Although two-dimensional representations are equally important to
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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2
INTRODUCTION
the design and representation of architecture, models have a “hereness” that make the structures they describe tangible, present bodies.
It is because of the physical model’s ability to make visible a building
in absentia that architects have continued to extoll its virtue.
Not the least familiar of these proponents is the fifteenth-century
Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who recommended that
architects construct plain and simple scale models as tools to aid
in visualizing architectural ideas and above all to avoid faults.3 For
the next four centuries, Alberti’s rhetoric was echoed by many others, including Vincenzo Scamozzi, Henry Wotton, Jacques-François
Blondel, and Sir John Soane. Soane not only built models for his
own designs but also collected those of antique Greek and Roman
structures as didactic tools and, in one instance, also assembled a
full-size column he called a Pasticcio—an architectural folly with no
direct purpose.4 The twentieth-century German artist and amateur
architect Kurt Schwitters also used found materials to create art and
architecture called Merz, and in 1922 he promoted it as a method
for modeling and constructing new building designs.5 As Schwitters
explained, when a found object is used as material for creating a model
of architecture, the efficacy of one over another depends on its ability
to refresh an architect’s imagination about the spatial or constructive
principles of architecture. This approach was also fostered by another
German architect from the twentieth century, Frei Otto, in his use of
soap bubbles to anticipate the performance of his minimum surface
lightweight tensile structures.6 As these examples demonstrate, the
role of the architectural model in design is not limited to the illustration of a preconceived architectural idea but also includes its use as a
muse and generative tool.
Indeed, the selection and interpretation of a modeling material
are fundamental to the entire nature of the architectural model. In
certain kinds of modeling, such as that for model railways, reality
is miniaturized and pebbles are used to depict stones and so forth.
Unlike this naïve realistic approach, architectural models use materials such as wood or cardboard to represent building materials.
The early twentieth-century German philosopher Edmund Husserl
sought to explicate the process by which our experiences of things
in the world are ascribed with an identity such as a model of architecture. The term Husserl employed when referring to this kind of
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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INTRODUCTION
3
temporary suspension of preconceptions is Einklammerung (also
called epoché or “bracketing”).7 When a modeler “brackets” a modeling material, they cease to know it as a board of wood or piece of card,
viewing it instead as a longitudinal, stiff mass of dry organic fibers
having a unique weight and ability to transform. On the basis of these
conditions, the modeler will approach their materials with an initial
suspension of judgment by asking “what if?” and will speculate on
whether a particular material is suitable for describing some aspect of
an existing or proposed structure at diverse scales, levels of detail, or
intelligibility.
It is surprising that despite the long-standing presence of models
in architectural practice, as well as their familiarity in everyday life
as toys, souvenirs, or even art, a historical survey of different uses for
architectural models has rarely been undertaken. This task is made
more difficult by variable terminology, as the Italian word modello
became the dominant usage only during the fifteenth century.8
Before that time, the terms exemplum, muster, patron, Visierung, forma,
disengno, or even “model” could refer to both a two- and a threedimensional representation of architecture.9 A far greater obstacle
for historians is that architectural models are typically constructed
of perishable materials, were frequently destroyed, and in some cases
were dismantled so that their parts could be recycled in depictions
of other designs.10 Notwithstanding their relative absence during the
early Middle Ages, a significant number of models from antiquity
have survived. Of these, many that had been preserved in civic, religious, or private archives and collections since the fifteenth century
were brought together for two important international exhibitions in
Venice during 1994 and Turin in 1999.11 Although these exhibitions
drew attention to Renaissance and Baroque models, they did not significantly widen research on their different uses. More recently, a few
publications have begun to fill this lacuna in architectural research
by exploring the employment of models for a particular project, in a
specific geocultural region, or during a distinct period of time, while
a handful of seminars and colloquia have encouraged interdisciplinary discussions.12 Those works available in English from this field of
research are mainly limited to brief chronological accounts introducing the use of models by a handful of contemporary architects or offer
a concentrated topical survey of architectural modeling during the
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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4
INTRODUCTION
twentieth century.13 These contributions to the history of the architectural model are valuable because they capture the model maker’s
thoughts and intentions that may otherwise be unknown; the microhistorical accounts provide the researcher with a concentrated picture of the model, its maker, and the use for which it was intended. Yet
what they neglect to consider is that the uses of architectural models
were developed not in isolation, for a particular project or by a single
person, but in diverse locations and fields of cultural production.
One of the earliest attempts to create a historical survey of architectural models was made by Ludwig H. Heydenreich in “Architekturmodell,” his encyclopedia entry for Otto Schmitt’s Reallexikon zur
Deutschen Kunstgeschichte (1937).14 In it, Heydenreich proposed a classification of three principle types: Entwursfmodelle (design models),
Modelle nach gebauten Architekturen (models of constructed buildings),
and Idealmodelle (ideal models).15 Under each of these categories, Heydenreich included a number of subclasses that covered most of the
types known to architectural historians at the time. Few have challenged Heydenreich’s classification, and there has been little reconsideration of the value of such a typological grouping.16
The difficulties facing any study of architectural models following
a typology such as Heydenreich’s is that these models evolved over
time. Even Heydenreich’s assertion that design models after the fifteenth century were created at a mathematical scale to the planned
construction is not accurate. Already during the decade before Heydenreich published his encyclopedia entry, German architects were
promoting the use of building blocks and found objects as modeling
materials for inspiring new designs.17 Further, as demonstrated by Sir
John Soane’s collection of plaster casts and models depicting existing
structures from antiquity, they were not just souvenirs of the European Grand Tour but also didactic tools, which Soane he would use
as sources of inspiration for new designs.18 Equally significant for a
study on the use of architectural models are the Idealmodelle that
Heydenreich excludes from the practice of architects, since there is
ample evidence that these artifacts were not simply artistic renditions of buildings in miniature but exemplars for the composition of
architectural form.19 Because the scope of Heydenreich’s classification
is limited to three-dimensional representations of buildings or their
parts that are “hergestellt” (constructed) to depict a specific structure,
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a>
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INTRODUCTION
5
important uses of architectural design models are excluded, thereby
preventing a complete picture of their evolution in theory and practice from being established. For example, he omits Kurt Schwitters's
use of found objects mentioned above, or those models co-opted
from children’s pedagogical exercises, such as building blocks that
were famously adopted by Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, and Herman
Finsterlin as design tools during the twentieth century.20
What is problematic for historians of architecture is not just this
shifting and evolution of the modeling material and its uses but the
subtler areas of interpretation itself. This is to say, rather than following a simple chronological development of types, the different
applications for architectural models result from a complex network
of interpretation and reinterpretation. The French anthropologist
and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss provided a description of this
complexity in his theory of human knowledge: he conceives it as an
exchange between science and bricolage in which the former creates
a tool to suit a particular task and the latter reuses that tool in new
ways.21 Umberto Eco’s seminal text on human interpretation in the
arts, The Open Work, shows how models may similarly acquire different applications in the representation of architecture.22 Using the
notions of “completeness” and “openness,” Eco argues that a work of
art, music, or literature was considered “complete” when its author
ascribes to it an intention that the audience can re-create or understand in the way it was intended. In contrast, an “open work” was
one that either the maker or the audience interpreted as “unfinished,”
incomplete, and open to interpretation.23 An example of such a work,
according to Eco, is scriptures: “The reader of the text knows that
every sentence and every trope is ‘open’ to a multiplicity of meanings
which he must hunt for and find. Indeed, according to how he feels
at one particular moment, the reader might choose a possible interpretative key which strikes him as exemplary of this spiritual state.”24
Certainly, even an architectural model is also open to this same multiplicity of meanings that are not always intended or intentional. As the
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur held regarding works of fiction or
poetry, the architectural model may be considered open when its user
disengages their assumptions about the world behind it, its historical
causes, in order to speculate on new possibilities in the foreground.
For Umberto Eco, this disengagement is particularly strong in the
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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6
INTRODUCTION
contemporary experience of art since, he reasoned, every reception
of a work of art or architecture is both an interpretation and a performance of that work. A model of architecture is no exception to this
diversity of applications, which reveals the limitations of any study on
the physical model whose scope is unduly restricted.
This book aims to grapple with all the challenges and opportunities outlined above. Its main intention is to collect histories about the
evolution and development of the architectural model’s different uses
from antiquity to the present into a single study. While tracing each of
these histories, it also seeks to develop an interpretive framework for
understanding each of its applications and their employment during
different times and places. In particular, this book critically examines
and reflects upon existing research about architectural models, architectural model collections, and the decisions of their makers in their
historical context. In order to better distinguish the continuities and
ruptures over time, the chapters are written as histories of the architectural model’s different uses. The goal is to bring to the reader an
appreciation both for the architectural model’s diversity and for its
importance over time.
The first half of this book considers those models of existing, fantastic, or proposed structures which a modeler creates for a patron,
client, or builder to use in both imaginary and practical ways. Beginning with the earliest use of models as signs and surrogates for actual
structures in ancient Egyptian or Greek dedicatory and funerary practices, the first chapter introduces the entire problem of the model
as an interdependent relationship between sign, interpretant, and
signifier.25 Because many of these architectural models were created
to reproduce an existing structure with a high degree of visual and
proportional accuracy, they became valuable records for archaeological study and didactic tools in private collections and academies of
architecture.26 The second chapter considers models as a medium for
architectural reverie, taking a closer look at the ways in which their
materials or methods of fabrication enable them to become more
than simple inert depictions of structures and to provoke imaginative
architectural ideas. These examples demonstrate how a model’s user,
like a child playing with a toy, will undermine their own or their client’s assumptions that it is a faithful depiction of a real structure to
encourage the contemplative reverie of an architecture both possible
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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INTRODUCTION
7
and fantastic. These approaches are no less important than but certainly different from the sectioning and enlargement of models to
bring a client or builder into the space of a proposed design. Early
examples of these models and their use as prototypes for experimental designs in the twentieth century are discussed in the third chapter.
The study of the architectural model then changes focus, as the
second half of this book explores those examples which exemplify the
different methods employed by architects to utilize models as aids
for designing buildings. The earliest and longest-enduring approach
to an architect’s use of the model as a design tool was inaugurated by
Alberti, who, as already mentioned, promoted the model as an ideal
tool for anticipating problems in physical three-dimensional form.27
To this end, Alberti warned against overly decorated and refined models that might distract the user from a study and appreciation of the
architect’s solution, recommending instead that they be plain and
simple.28 This chapter illuminates the influence of Alberti’s proposed
modeling method on treatises and extant examples throughout central Europe and North America until the early twentieth century. It
was during this period that changes in both political and aesthetic
norms encouraged architects to look again at their modeling materials as a medium for thinking about new architectural form. In the
examples surveyed in chapter 5, architects began to consider the
propriety of their modeling materials as an informant and, when the
structural or formal design was not yet determined, as a generative
tool. In this cultural context, a use of the architectural model emerged
that began to blur the distinctions between the making of art and of
architecture, in what contemporary architectural handbooks refer
to as a “concept” model.29 The final chapter looks at the beginnings
of these examples in allegorical, analogical, and anagogical forms of
interpretation, which anticipate a use of materials that not only are
transformed but also become an exemplar and source of inspiration
for organizing materials, forms, and spaces into buildings, bridges,
and other works of architecture.
These histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse, demonstrate the value of architectural models
in human culture. Because buildings cannot always be experienced
directly, models have enjoyed a great popularity among their users
as a surrogate for the structure itself or for the experience of its
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a>
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8
INTRODUCTION
Copyright © 2019. MIT Press. All rights reserved.
formal, tactile, and sensory complexity. In the hands of their maker,
the manipulation, play, experimentation, and dreaming that occur
with the aid of three-dimensional models opens the imagination to
contemplate architecture in diverse ways. Whether it is used as a
sign, record, didactic tool, informant, exemplar, medium, or muse,
this book demonstrates the different ways in which the architectural
model has evolved and acquired new uses over time.
Mindrup, M. (2019). The architectural model : Histories of the miniature and the prototype, the exemplar and the muse. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a>
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