At first glance, the wooden assemblage, about 2 feet long, could be a work of art—an early experiment by Noguchi, perhaps. But something else is going on; the piece is actually a sequence. The first stage is a simple wooden hemisphere; the second shows that same hemisphere cut into unequal segments but emanating from the same center point; the third lays them out in a suddenly familiar array. This is a concept model of the Sydney Opera House. When we see the sequence, we are looking over the shoulder of Jørn Utzon as he tries to convince a skeptical Ove Arup that the central idea of his masterwork is viable. It can work. Look. Often, architectural models are ends in themselves. Early-career architects may lavish time and care on a beautiful proposal in the knowledge that their vision is unlikely to be built. It’s the same with the old crowd too. One of the many compelling moments in the Sydney Pollack–directed documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry is when the interlocutor asks the architect why his practice creates at least two models of different scales for each building. His answer: “So we don’t become enamored of the model.”
Making models for their own delight can be dangerous. The new exhibition Shaping Space—Architectural Models Revealed, at London’s Building Centre, on view until January 2022, explores the more practical, yet no less compelling, aspect of model-making.
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