Models are not Centers for Ants

Models are not Centers for Ants

In one of the funniest scenes in Zoolander, Derek Zoolander, due to his limited mental capacity, misunderstands a scale model of the Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good as being the building itself. Which leads to his frustrated exclamation “How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read...if they can’t even fit inside the building?” While silly at face value, when building models, most architects are really building Centers for Ants. In Architecture Model as Machine, the author refers to the architectural model as a small-scale model machine. Machines make things happen. They are not there to sit quietly and look pretty (although looking pretty is a plus). They are there to get in the trenches (sometimes literally) and get things done. In this way the author argues that models are not merely there to represent the soon-to-be building but rather are just as influenced by the cultural milieu of the time and as socially, politically, economically and even spiritually engaged.

It is within this framework that he introduces the different architects in the chapter. Gaudi came from a time where the sciences were seen as the mechanism with which to understand and marvel at God’s work. Although the resulting buildings were quite distinctive, the intellectual framework that they arose from were fitting for their time. Tatlin and El Lissitzky, on the other hand, physically represent the upheaval and uncertainty of the new communist regime and the overturning of centuries of customs and socioeconomic organization through their models. For this, they conceive of different ways to approach the model so as to convey this new world order. In a more personal approach than the preceding architects, Kahn explores his spiritual uncertainties via the model. Finally, Libeskind embodies the anarchic pluralism of his own time in his modeling practice.