Architecture and Model Building

Concepts – Methods – Materials

What the book really is

Architecture and Model Building is a book about architectural models, but it is also a book about architectural thinking. Alexander Schilling is not interested only in how to cut paperboard cleanly or which tool works best for rigid foam. He wants to define the architectural model as a serious medium inside the design process. That is clear from the foreword, where he describes the model as the medium that comes closest to built reality before the building exists. It is spatial, three-dimensional, physically perceptible, and uniquely able to simulate proportion, structure, materiality, the behavior of light, and architectural character. That starting point is important because it lifts the subject above hobby craft and places it squarely within architecture’s core tools.

What makes the book especially strong is that Schilling does not assign the model to one fixed stage of design. He says explicitly that the model cannot be defined as occupying a single position in the chain of making architecture. It may appear at different places, for different people, with different functions. Sometimes it is a rough working device. Sometimes it is a competition instrument. Sometimes it is a presentation object. Sometimes it serves construction itself. That fluidity gives the book more depth than a standard “how to make models” guide. It is really asking what a model is, why it is needed, and how its role changes over time.

Historical context and why it matters

The book opens historically, and that turns out to be more than background. Schilling wants the reader to understand that modelmaking is not a minor side tradition but a long-running architectural practice. He traces miniature depictions of buildings back to the high cultures of North Africa and Asia, then moves through medieval builders, Renaissance wooden models, nineteenth-century plaster and wood workshops, and twentieth-century experiments. The historical chapter is useful because it makes one of the book’s quietest but strongest claims: the architectural model is not obsolete simply because newer tools exist. Architects have repeatedly used models when drawings alone were not enough to communicate, test, or unify a design.

The Renaissance discussion is particularly strong. Schilling describes how wooden models were used to visualize churches, palaces, and theaters for patrons and clients, and he points to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s enormous model of St. Peter’s Basilica as the best-known example. The insight here is not merely historical admiration. Schilling argues that the motives for making that model are essentially the same as those for making models now: to visualize a design, to communicate with decision-makers, and to hold together a coherent concept. That continuity gives the whole book confidence. It suggests that modelmaking is not an accidental tradition, but a recurring answer to architecture’s persistent need for three-dimensional understanding.

He is also good on changing materials and technical cultures. Plaster and wood dominate the earlier history, both for durability and for craft familiarity. By the twentieth century, new materials and new constructions transform architecture and, with it, modelmaking. Schilling notes the shift toward larger urban ensembles, more precise technical models, and the growing use of photography alongside models. The example of Frei Otto is especially telling. For Schilling, Frei Otto’s analog structural experiments show the model not as a final display object but as a tool of research. That broadens the reader’s understanding considerably. The model is not just something that represents architecture after it is conceived. Sometimes it helps discover the architecture in the first place.

Representation and the model’s special status

The chapter on representation is where the book sharpens its central argument. Schilling says the unique selling point of the model is that it depicts space in three perceivable dimensions. Drawings, sketches, plans, sections, and even perspectives all require the observer to reconstruct space mentally. A model, by contrast, makes space directly readable. He is careful not to set model and drawing in competition; both are necessary. But he insists that they are not equivalent. A drawing depends more heavily on the viewer’s skill in interpretation, whereas a model gives a more immediate and physically legible spatial impression.

This is one of the most convincing parts of the book because Schilling does not overstate it. He acknowledges perspective and digital visualization, and he gives BIM a real place in the discussion. He explains BIM as a virtual model containing geometry, technical data, and project information. But he then asks the crucial question: is the virtual model in competition with the physical one? His answer is effectively no. He uses the analogy that synthesizers and computers did not replace the piano or the organ. New tools open possibilities; they do not always erase old ones. This is a strong argument because it avoids both panic and nostalgia. Physical models survive not because architecture is backward, but because different media do different things well.

Typology as a major strength

The typology chapter is one of the book’s biggest practical strengths. Schilling classifies landscape models, site and urban models, building models, interior models, facade models, detail models, mock-ups, and even the completed building at scale 1:1. This is extremely useful because architecture students often talk about “making a model” as though the task were self-evident. Schilling shows that the intended function determines both type and scale. A 1:500 site model is doing something fundamentally different from a 1:20 facade model or a 1:1 mock-up.

He is especially good on scale and abstraction. Scale does not simply shrink the building; it determines what counts as essential and what disappears. The chosen scale shapes the level of abstraction, the amount of detail, and even the kind of knowledge the model can produce. A city model at 1:1000 emphasizes mass, urban relation, and context. A building model at 1:100 or 1:50 can communicate composition, articulation, and structural logic. An interior model at 1:20 or 1:10 can test light, furniture, and spatial atmosphere. A detail model at 1:5 or 1:1 investigates actual articulation. This is excellent teaching because it ties representation directly to design intention.

Another good point is his treatment of sectional, structural, and dismantlable models. He shows that models do not need to pretend to completeness to be effective. Sometimes cutting away, opening up, or reducing the building to structure is what makes the design most understandable. This is part of the book’s broader philosophy: a model should not be judged by how “finished” it looks alone, but by whether it communicates the right thing at the right moment. That is a very useful correction to student perfectionism.

Function: why make a model at all?

The function chapter asks the essential question directly: why make models? Schilling is refreshingly honest here. Models cost time and money. They are not automatically required by every commission. Drawings, renderings, and digital workflows can often carry much of the communicative burden. Yet he argues that models remain justifiable because of their three-dimensional clarity and their persuasive power, especially for viewers who are not trained in reading drawings. He notes that clients often show more interest in a model than in sheets pinned to the wall. That simple observation is professionally important. Models do not merely store architectural information; they activate attention.

He is also very good on the changing function of models across the design process. At the beginning, the model may be experimental and rough. Later it may become a presentation model. Still later it may function almost as a final construction model, convincing decision-makers that the design is ready for realization. He even notes that the final model still retains the potential of a working model, because it can continue to reveal things about the design. This is a subtle but powerful point. Design does not end just because the model becomes beautiful. The model remains a thinking device.

Materials, tools, and workshop intelligence

The materials chapter and model-construction sections give the book its workshop credibility. Schilling discusses paperboard, cardboard, wood, metal, plastics, plaster, and monochrome models with a strong sense that materials communicate architecture, not just fabricate it. Working models often use cheaper materials adequate to experimentation, while presentation models may demand greater durability and refinement. He is especially interesting on monochrome models: by removing material variety and color distraction, they push perception toward abstract space and form. That point is more important than it sounds. It shows Schilling consistently thinking of the model as an interpretation, not just as a miniature replica.

The workshop sections are among the most concrete in the book. Schilling outlines a typical production sequence from concept to workshop drawings, mounting board, carcass, filigree details, staffage, color, varnish, lettering, photography, and packaging. He also explains specific tools and machines, including hot-wire cutters, soldering irons, spray guns, and digital fabrication methods. Yet even here, the book does not become mechanically technical. He insists that modelmaking remains an art learned through practice and that each model is a vehicle for learning.

His treatment of digitization is one of the better-balanced discussions in the book. He recognizes laser cutting, routers, and digital tools as transformative, but he resists the idea that manual work is therefore meaningless. He argues that hand methods still have cognitive and expressive value. Sometimes they are quicker. More importantly, they deepen the maker’s awareness of process. His analogy that every chef should first whip cream by hand before using a mixer may sound old-fashioned, but it makes the pedagogical point well. Architecture students should know how making feels before fully outsourcing it to machines.

Presentation, photography, and the model as image

The final major layer of the book concerns presentation and views. Schilling makes the important point that the completed model can become a photo model. This adds another dimension to its value. Models can be photographed for records, portfolios, brochures, competitions, and exhibitions, and those photographs can direct the viewer’s attention more selectively than the object alone. He argues that a photograph can filter the model, pulling out the most important design content and making it easier for non-expert audiences to understand. That is a sophisticated observation about representation. The model is already a representation of architecture; the photograph becomes a representation of the representation.

He is also alert to the museum and exhibition role of models. In exhibitions, models often attract the most interest because they communicate architecture so visibly and impressively. Protected in cases, elevated on plinths, and lit carefully, they gain a status almost parallel to the architecture they represent. Schilling understands that models can operate as design tools, teaching tools, persuasive tools, and cultural objects all at once. This is one of the reasons the book feels multilayered rather than narrowly technical.

Strengths and limitations

The book’s greatest strengths are conceptual breadth, practical usefulness, and media balance. It gives history, typology, function, materials, workshop process, and presentation without breaking apart into disconnected mini-essays. It is also unusually fair about analog and digital media. Schilling values the physical model deeply, but he does not pretend other tools do not exist. He places models among sketches, technical drawings, BIM, digital fabrication, and photography, showing that each medium has a different strength.

Its limitation is mainly one of standpoint. This is not a narrow fabrication manual, a BIM guide, or a software-driven visualization book. It is written by someone committed to the continuing importance of the physical model. Readers seeking exhaustive digital workflows will need additional sources. But judged on its own aims, the book is very successful. It teaches that the model is not just an object to make after designing. It is a way of discovering, clarifying, and communicating architecture itself.

Final judgment

My judgment is strongly positive. Architecture and Model Building is one of those books that turns a seemingly narrow subject into a broader reflection on architecture. It is at once historical, practical, and methodological. Its best achievement is that it persuades the reader that modelmaking is not an optional decorative extra but one of architecture’s most intelligent media, precisely because it sits between abstraction and reality. For students, it looks like a very good guide. For professionals, it is a thoughtful reminder of what the physical model can still do.

Command Palette