Model Projections
4 October – 15 December 2018, Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia GSAPP
Curated by Jennifer Gray and Irene Sunwoo with Tiffany Lambert,
Model Projections investigates the complex pathways between architecture and its representations through an examination of the practice of model making. While models have long occupied a central role in the design and building processes, during the postwar period the production and function of models expanded as architecture firms increasingly commissioned elaborate three-dimensional representations that were extraordinarily precise in detail—from simulated materials to landscaping, from designer furniture to electrification. Precursors to today’s hyperrealist renderings and virtual environments, scale models helped architects advance design development, persuade clients, and launch buildings into the public imaginary through exhibitions and mass media long before their realization. At the same time, these objects became the nexus of abstract exchanges of information and divergent agendas amongst architects, clients, model makers, and photographers. The exhibition explores these ephemeral registers of architectural production, revealing the model itself as a site of collaboration, negotiation, and speculation—not unlike the full-scale building that it anticipated.