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The Architectural Model – Tool, Fetish, Small Utopia Frankfurt / Main, 23/05/2012
Materials: Wood, board, metal, wax, melted polystyrene, soap sud…
The exhibition shows models made of a great variety of materials. Models are traditionally made of wood
or cardboard. In the DAM, however, models made of metal will also be on display: a copper model by
Aldo Rossi, a silver-plated bronze cast by BeL-Architekten. Amongst the most curious objects are wax
models, which were formed in a water basin, and polystyrene models that architect Franz Krause melted
using a burning candle. Visitors can adopt a hands-on approach to model boxes by Frei Otto and
experiment with sand and soap suds: The soap film models played a major role in Frei Otto’s
development of lightweight tent constructions.
3D printer
A 3D printer was acquired especially for the exhibition. Developed several years ago this technology
permits architectural models to be produced of plastic in a single operation. The 3D printer is operated in
cooperation with the Technical University in Kaiserslautern. In public printing workshops staged together
with the Städel School at weekends in the exhibition rooms, produces small duplicates of one of the most
famous models in the DAM collection, the Einstein Tower by the architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887–
1953).
Architectural models in films
The auditorium will be transformed into a movie theater during the exhibition. We will be screening the
artistic film project “Mock-Ups in Close-Up” – a montage of scenes from feature films lasting over three
hours and including architectural models. In 141 films, beginning with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927),
Gabu Heindl and Drehli Robnik tracked down architectural models, which often played a major role in
the plot, frequently by being destroyed with great to-do.
In architecture studios
Specially for the exhibition, photographs were taken in three architecture studios of how the models are
kept “in their natural environment”, as it were, in other words in the place where they were made: At
Barkow Leibinger Architekten in Berlin they are hung like reliefs on the wall, at Schultes Frank
Architekten, likewise in Berlin, they tower up on a shelf and at the Frankfurt architects Meixner Schlüter
Wendt they stand in and on glass show cases, arranged as a mine of related ideas for designs.
Mock-up collection of a model builder
Established 1947 in Zurich, Zaborowsky-Modellbau is one of the most respected model building firms.
Some 80 model fragments from the latter’s mock-up collection have been made available for the first time
for the exhibition. They enable a view behind the perfectly crafted facades. One can imagine how the
models came to be so precise.
PRESSEINFORMATION Seite 4