Models as a Medium in Architecture

Architecture is more than just buildings. Its associated production and reception pro7 cesses take place through a variety of different media. Among those media, the model is of special 8 significance: because architecture, like almost every science or art, works with models as 9 representationally or theoretically simplified images mediating between the abstract and the 10 reality. The properties that characterise models give them a special significance in archi11 tecture—both in the abstract, as well as in the concrete. The following article sketches out the 12 history of the architectural model as a medium in a short tour d’horizon. A special focus is placed on 13 showing the versatility of the model—for design and presentation and as an artefact, teaching 14 resource and research medium. It transmits a specific form of knowledge which can be replaced by 15 no other medium. 16


Introduction
Architecture is more than just buildings.Its associated production and reception processes take place through a variety of different media.The duality of construction and media is a central feature of architecture and knowledge of this duality is as old as the discipline itself (Sonne 2011, pp. 7-14).
Vitruvius already distinguishes between that which is signified and that which signifies ('quod significatur et quod significat').He not only specifies three types of graphic representation-ichnographia, orthographia and scaenographia ('plan', 'elevation' and 'perspective'), which an architect has to master, but also claims that he requires linguistic, mathematical and even musical knowledge (Vitruvius 1960, pp. 5-16).
Among the media, in addition to the drawing, the model has a special significance: because architecture, like almost every science or art, works with models as representationally or theoretically simplified images mediating between the abstract and the reality.The three properties that characterise models generally, namely representation, simplification and non-unique assignment capability (Stachowiak 1973, pp. 131-133), give models special significance in architecture-both in the abstract, as well as in the concrete.This is particularly evident in the concrete architecture model.
It shares two essential properties with an actual building-three-dimensionality and materiality-and can therefore often be viewed as its substitute.Furthermore, it also has the ability of making its anticipatory function visible not only in abstracto, but also directly, "at a glance" (Oechslin 2011, p. 131).
The following article sketches out the history of the architectural model as a medium in a short tour d'horizon.A special focus will be placed on showing the versatility of the model-as a design and presentation medium, as an artefact, a teaching resource and a research medium.It transmits a specific form of knowledge which can be replaced by no other medium.In this context it is interesting to note that among the more or less important studies produced so far, concerning media in architecture generally (Frascari, Hale, and Starkey 2007) as well as individual media (e.g.

Drawing and Model
Up until the 13th century the design and construction process is determined by the original scale and especially by the ground plan drawings-the calibration of the foundations on the location plane.Three-dimensional plastic representations of buildings and structures are only verified by written sources, such as the wax model of the monastery church of Saint Germain in Auxerre (9th century) described in a report of the Benedictine monk Heiric of Auxerre (Binding and Linscheid-Burdich 2002, pp.73-99).Although votive or patron models are common as symbolic representations they have but little practical significance.
The architectural model arises in tandem with the development of architectural drawing in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance-here reference could be made to the drawings in the sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt from around 1230 (Bechmann 1991).
From the 14th century onwards, to the south of the Alps largescale experimental and presentation models made of wax, clay, wood or brick are created for larger church construction projects in the context of the emerging system of design competition (Millon and Lampugnani 1994;Lepik 1994).For example, for the construction of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (1296-1379/1418-1434) numerous partial models are made, first by Arnolfo di Cambio and later by Filippo Brunelleschi, the inventor of vanishing point perspective, for presentation as well as for testing the dome construction.And for St Peter's Basilica in Rome (1506-1626), not only can the entire design and planning process be traced in detail on the basis of drawings of the participating architects-Donato Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo, Baldassare Peruzzi, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini-, but a number of models are also produced.Sangallo, for instance, has over a period of seven years a detailed, 736 cm long and 468 cm high approachable wooden model in scale 1 : 30 built, that would, however, be discarded by Michelangelo (Bredekamp 2008).
In parallel to this the drawing and the model are also theoretically defined.However, the model is accorded only a subordinate function, while the drawing is considered the primary design medium.In De re aedificatoria (1452) Leon Battista Alberti describes architecture primarily as the result of the work with sketches ('lineamenta') and structures ('structura').There he prefers orthogonal projections, i. e. the floor plan and elevation, and rejects the perspective as a tool for painters because of its inaccurate angles and scale (Alberti 1485; cf.Kieven 2011).Alberti introduces the model at the beginning of the second book-at the transition from design to construction-as a tool for quality assurance: "I therefore always highly commend the ancient Custom of Builders, who not only in Draughts and Paintings, but in real Models of Wood or other Substance, examin'd and weigh'd over and over again, with the Advice of Men of the best Experience, the whole Work and the Admeasurements of all its Parts, before they put themselves to the Expence or Trouble.By making a Model you will have an Opportunity, thoroughly to weigh and consider the Form and Situation of your Platform with respect to the Region, … .And there you may easily and freely add, retrench, alter, renew, and in short change every Thing from one End to t'other, till all and every one of the Parts are just as you would have them, and without Fault (Alberti 1955, pp. 22)." As further evidence of the character of the model as an aid device, Alberti does not attach great importance to its implementation: The primacy of the drawing vis-à-vis the model is evident in the concept of disegno by Giorgio Vasari.On the one hand, it symbolises the draft or design as an intellectual concept, which gives form to the preceding artistic idea in the three arts of painting, sculpture and architecture.But on the other hand disegno also very practically means a drawing (from Latin 'designare', to describe, draw, produce outlines of), which is used to organise work in the workshop and as a means of communication with clients (Vasari 1568; cf.Kemp 1974).In this context, major importance is attached to the interpretation of the Vitruvian representations.Daniele Barbaro changes scaenographia to sciographia ('section'); and Andrea Palladio in I quattro libri dell'architettura elevates the trio of floor plan, elevation and section to a principle of architecture (Palladio 1570).
The model, however, is considered a peripheral instrument.For example, Vincenzo Scamozzi, in L'idea della architettura universale consigned it to the "instruments which serve the architect" In the course of the 17th and 18th centuries the model advances in practice and theory to a medium that is regarded as a complement to the drawing and gradually as its equal.It gains in importance in baroque architecture, as the graphic representation of its plastic and spatial reification-including optical illusions and perspective foreshortening-presents a major challenge (Kieven 2011, pp. 15-31), which can, however, be more clearly visualised in the model (Mosser 1981;Reuther 1981).Balthasar Neumann, for example, prefers the model to the drawing and whenever possible has three-dimensional objects prepared (Muth 1987).
In the first volume of his Ausführliche Anleitung zur Bürgerlichen Bau-Kunst (1744-1748) Johann Friedrich Penther defines the model as a tool to give concrete form to a design idea: "A model, muster, modello is a physical illustration of a thing to be manufactured or already manufactured, as a house, a fortress, a statue etc.Thus, if the thing is to be made, you can acquire beforehand a complete concept of its shape, or can undertake an improvement in its preparation.
They can be made, depending upon the things being modelled, of wood, wax, plaster, cardboard, glue or even of stone pieces; … (Penther 1744, p. 107)." The frontispiece of the second volume of Ausführliche Anweisung zur Bürgerlichen Bau-Kunst shows an architecture workshop in which putti are working on halfsections of architectural models (Penther 1745, frontispiece; Figure 1).

Photo models and building blocks
In the first decades of the 20th century the picturesque architectural drawings of the late 19th century are increasingly replaced by axonometric projections and architectural models.The latter in particular gain greatly in significance as a modern design and presentation medium.
In the course of the modernization and objectification of design and presentation media by the protagonists of the modern movement the axonometric projection becomes preferred; it is to communicate a "new technical objectivity in architecture".Walter Gropius even advocates this at the Bauhaus as "representation technology conforming to the spirit of the age" (Nerdinger 1986, pp.17-18), although it is introduced as early as the 18th century by Johann Friedrich Penther and described as "horizontal section" (Penther 1744, pp.17 Secondly, the architectural model serves to represent the rationalisation efforts-standardization, prefabrication and mass production-employed by a number of the protagonists of the modern movement (cf.Bittner 1995).In 1923 Walter Gropius, for example, presents for the first time a "modular system in large scale": a modular housing system (Gropius 1924 The photos of architects and models, published so extensively from the 1960s onwards in the press, promote the conception of the architect as an almost omnipotent planner, who with his models not only shapes individual buildings but even whole cities. The perfecting of model building goes so far that in 1975 Arthur Drexler expresses suspicion, in conjunction with the exhibition The Architecture of the École des Beaux Arts, that models show an ideal state compared to which the real building is doomed to failure.The architects of modernism have exalted their models to sculptures and lost sight of reality; the building stands in an interesting but ultimately superfluous relationship to the model (Drexler 1977, p. 27).

The model as art and research medium
The perfecting of modelbuilding techniques opens new fields for the model ranging from a free art object to various forms of models as a medium for research.
In 1976, as a response to Drexler's previously mentioned Beaux Arts exhibition, the exhibition Idea as Model is organized at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York.There 20 architectural models are exhibited, which show in a rather abstract way their connection to real projects and can be described as objects of art, for which there is demand on the art market (Frampton 1981).Peter Eisenman explains in this context that "models, like drawings, can easily lead their own conceptual lives, relatively independent of the project which they represent (Eisenman 1981, p. 1)." Working with models also leads to various forms of studies and research models, some of which even play a decisive role in the design process.For example, at Frei Otto's Institute for Lightweight Structures, in the two special research areas "Lightweight Construction" and "Natural Construction", many different types of models are used as a research medium-"thinking in models"-, not only to create a form, but also to analyse construction principles and for the determination of forces and force vectors: including textile models and soap film models for tent and membrane constructions, chains and pendant models for lattice shell constructions and finally soap bubbles or liquid threads in the case of pneumatic or branched structures (Barthel 2005  Initially, the majority of computerassisted applications are aimed at digitalising conventional design processes.But the development of three-dimensional modelling programs together with CNC-milling, 3D-printers and robots make possible the seamless translation of a virtual model into a physical product.Since in theory the same data can be used for a virtual model as for real production, the difference between the model and reality is to a certain extent eliminated (Schubert 2010, pp. 56-63;Kaufmann 2010, pp. 64-71).
In the digital age the architectural model has often been declared dead.While classical architectural drawing has gradually been dematerialised and displaced by digital media, digital and physical models continue to exist side by side.The physical architectural model even, in all the forms outlined here, has the unique advantage compared to virtual media that-as Piccolomini and Barozzi already point out in 1560-all forms of abstraction are bound to material.Which is why the model will remain indispensable for a long time yet.

"
I must not omit to observe, that the making of curious, polish'd Models, with the Delicacy of Painting, is not required from an Architect that only designs to shew the real Thing itself; … .For this reason I would not have the Models too exactly finish'd, nor too delicate and neat, but plain and Preprints (www.preprints.org)| NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 12 December 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201712.0071.v1simple, more to be admired for the Contrivance of the Inventor, than the Hand of the Workman (Alberti 1955, pp.22.)"
-21).The triumphal march of the architecture model is furthered, firstly, by the availability of modern photographic and printing techniques, such as image reproduction in offset printing from 1910 onwards.These enable for the first time the realistic reproduction of photographed architecture models in the mass media(Elser 2012, pp.13-14).One of the most interesting examples is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's study for a glass highrise building (1922), which he creates in connection with his famous competition entry for a highrise building on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin (1921).As he himself writes, he studies the "rich play of light reflections" on the glass facade of the model in order to determine the shape of the building and its floor plan.He later publishes numerous photographs, drawings and collages of this model, including in 1924 on the title page of the avantgarde magazine G. Material zur elementaren Gestaltung (Mies van der Rohe 1922, pp.122-124; Mies van der Rohe 1924, p. 9; cf.Neumann 2001, pp.186-189; Lepik 2001, pp.325-328).

7 .
Epilogue: Models from the computer-the end of the model?With the use of computers in architecture from the 1980s onward a fundamental change begins.
Nevertheless, in the 16th century the model concept expands considerably in philosophy and mathematics, as can be seen from a discussion between Alessandro Piccolomini and Francesco Barozzi.It becomes recognised that models can facilitate access by laymen or children to abstract or mathematical insights since, as Werner Oechslin puts it, "all forms of abstraction (including the design itself) remain connected with the material and can be explained with reference to it ('ex subiecta materia',Oechslin 2011, p. 133)."Thispedagogical and didactic value which is rooted in the physical visibility of models, what is "modellable", continues to the present day and leads in the 19th century, among other things, to didactically conceived children's toys, such as halfsection models or model building blocks(Oechslin 2011, p. 135-141).

www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 12 December 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201712.0071.v1 5. "The miniature boom"
In the 1930s new technologies give impetus to the further professionalisation of model construction.Models become increasingly used to display comprehensive future designs and placed in scenarios with the photographic and cinematic possibilities of the time.For instance, at the 1939 World Exhibition in New York, the city of the future is presented in the form of large-scale models such as Futurama by Norman Bel Geddes and the City of Tomorrow exhibition (Herman 2012, pp.58-The rapid development of model construction displaces to a large extent the perspective drawing for presentation and design.The work of Mies van der Rohe after his emigration to Chicago can be mentioned as an example of this: He uses models, collages and photo montages predominantly for presentation purposes, and pure perspective drawings significantly less.In his architecture office the model building department led from 1944 by Edward Duckett occupies up to onequarter of the floor space.And hardly any other architect of this time has himself photographed as often with models of his designs as does Mies van der Rohe(Lambert 2001, pp.204-217, 569-570).