Despite Resemblance - Scale Models and the Representation of Architectural Objects

• Main Author: João Miguel Couto Duarte
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2019-01-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Architecture
• Online Access: https://www.athensjournals.gr/architecture/2019-5-1-4-Duarte.pdf

The challenge of exploring ‘Inter and Transdisciplinary Relationships in Architecture’ might be embraced as a possibility to outward as much as to inward the comprehension of architecture and its design. This paper aims to reconsider the relationship between scale models and architectural objects after Nelson Goodman’s discussion about resemblance and representation in ‘Languages of Art’, thus allowing a new understanding of the role of architectural representation in architectural design. In ‘Languages of Art’ the still common belief that representation profits from some sort of resemblance to its object is deemed untenable. It is strictly arbitrary the relation between one and the other. That is why – Goodman remarks – “almost anything may stand for almost anything else.” Drawings and photography might confirm Goodman’s statement since only a convention seems to allow the recognition of a three-dimensional object in a bi-dimensional one. But that is not the case with scale models. Due to its nature it remains comfortable to think about a scale model as having a natural resemblance to an architectural object, thus seeming its closest representation. Nevertheless Goodman’s proposals must be considered. Also scale models must be scrutinized as strictly arbitrary representations, resting upon a system of conventions instead of a set of proprieties shared with the architectural object it is meant to replace. And being confirmed its strictly arbitrariness, that is, being confirmed that is devoid of any natural relation with its subject, scale model’s role in architectural design must also be scrutinized. This paper will first discuss scale models’ representational nature and, subsequently, how the radical difference it holds from the object thus represented matters to architectural design. Scale models ought to be comprehended despite the resemblance deluded with the architecture they allow to envision.