A new exhibition in Germany looks at the history of the architectural model in contemporary art. It begins with a legendary model by Charles Simonds, covers the 1990s with Ludger Gerdes, Hermann Pitz and Thomas Schütte, and ends up in the present day with Alicia Framis, Hinrich Sachs and Carlos Garaicoa.
From the curators:
In the field of architecture and urban planning, the three-dimensional architectural model – on a reduced scale -- continues to function as a tool when communicating planned or realised architecture. The model can efficiently provide information about larger spatial contexts, which are either experienced very differently in their original dimensions or may even be impossible to experience at all. Through its reduction in size, the model also facilitates a reduction in spatial complexity. Suddenly, it is possible to grasp things at a glance that can only be understood in their original size through the time-consuming process of a physical inspection.
