The essay "The Time and Space of Physical Modeling" is part of the publication Pre-Tectonic Constructs, a book on Models for Architecture by the Städelschule Architecture Class, edited by Johan Bettum and Gabi Schillig.


The Time and Space of Physical Modeling

For hundreds of years the drawing and the model, as the architect’s communicative tools, have remained consistent in their character. Drawings and models have been essential to realize ideas, and especially models have the potential to convert all kinds of information into the physical realm. As we have transitioned from the machine era to the information era, the production of architecture has changed. In the new design processes the computer relieves the paper as medium and the physical model is replaced by a digitally manufactured model. Armed with the capability to draw and make, the machine presents the danger that it will act as designer and maker to produce results that are immediate and merely mirror that which preceded the results. Processes of modification and development are no longer available to us since the gap between information and making is collapsed and produces an irreversible digital design process.

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Pre-Tectonic Constructs
Models for Architecture by the Städelschule Architecture Class
Johan Bettum and Gabi Schillig (ed.)
Städelschule Frankfurt and Krings-Ernst Gallery, Cologne

Pre-Tectonic Constructs
Städelschule Architecture Class