25/09/2021
Architectural models have been used as study and presentation tools for centuries, a fact that Fankhänel barely acknowledges in her introduction. She is correct in pointing out that professional model builders emerged in the 20th century as specialists in their own right, mainly as a result of advances in shop technology and the spate of large-scale construction projects that occurred before and after World War II. Before that time, most models were made of plaster or wood, materials that were time-consuming to sculpt or assemble. Clay models were sometimes employed when only a crude massing study was required, but for presentation purposes, most architects relied on elaborate renderings in ink, watercolor, or soft pencil. Hugh Ferriss, the visionary renderer who is credited with introducing setback massing for tall buildings, worked mainly in charcoal. Other famous renderers, such as Jules Guerin, used watercolor and pencil on colored papers during the early years of the 20th century. Fankhanel underplays the fact that, prior to the 1920s, a number of American rendering specialists earned top dollar for creating elaborate presentation drawings for leading architects such as McKim, Mead & White, Daniel Burnham, and Carrère & Hastings. In England, Edwin Lutyens employed William Walcott as a watercolorist, while commissioning Twining Models, a subsidiary of a toy company, to make models of Liverpool Cathedral and the Queen’s Doll House.
As skyscraper construction flourished in the U.S., “delineators” were gradually supplanted by craftsmen like Conrad, Ramon Lester, and René Chamberlain, among about two dozen model makers surveyed by Jane Jacobs in Architectural Forum’s May 1958 issue. Magazines like Pencil Points (later to become Progressive Architecture) were cautious in discussing the worth of producing cardboard study models during the 1920s but got on the bandwagon once Corbett and other leading architects demonstrated the value of “selling” their schemes by presenting alternatives in model form, obviating the need for expensive renderings. Another advantage of models at different scales was their capacity for showing the entire building, not just one elevation or perspective view, during a presentation to a committee of executives or decision-makers. Fankhänel provides some wonderful photos of such presentations, including one of Gordon Bunshaft hovering over a model of the Connecticut General Life building in 1953.
Conrad was a pioneer who participated in an astounding array of key projects during his long career. He opened his own shop in 1931 and witnessed firsthand the modelmaking enterprises that arose around the 1939 New York World’s Fair, building the first model of the Trylon & Perisphere. During the war he was paid to construct a large model of a naval base; he also did prototyping for noted industrial designer Walter Darwin Teague. Working with photographer Louis Checkman, he developed a system for producing models that could be photographed from various angles, at several scales, resulting in a spate of magazine spreads that amazed publishers for their realism. His client list included Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Wallace Harrison, Edward Durrell Stone, Marcel Breuer, and Minoru Yamasaki. He also made elaborate mock-ups specifically for publication in magazines, and for architectural exhibitions.
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