Architectural Model as Machine: A New View of Models from Antiquity to the Present Day

by Albert Smith

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This book offers an explanation of why scale models are important to the design process. Albert Smith takes the reader through the history and significance of models in architecture from the magic of the Egyptian scale model to the present day.


Through this description of the relationship between architecture and the scale model, Smith demonstrates the most effective process between concept and 'machine', between the idea and the final building. The great value of this book is to reveal the nature of the scale model and to unlock the tremendous potential of this design tool as a thinking and communicative advice.

His chronological analysis goes on from Egypt through Rome to the relationship between the Greek paradigm scale model and then on to Medieval and Renaissance models. It concludes with the models of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, the Russian Constructivists, the American architect Louis Khan and finally looks at the role of scale models in the present day through the work of the Polish/American architect Daniel Libeskind and the American Frank Gehry.
  • ISBN10 6610966419
  • ISBN13 9786610966417
  • Publish Date 2 November 2004 (first published 29 October 2004)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Out of Print 21 August 2012
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Elsevier Science & Technology
  • Format eBook
  • Pages 179
  • Language English