Modeling History revisits the material legacy of Kenneth Frampton’s course Studies in Tectonic Culture—a collection of models familiar to anyone who has passed through Avery Hall. It looks back in order to project forward, and asks how the construction of architectural history through the making of models might generate new histories, practices, and ways of seeing. Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Stagecraft: Models and Photos at Columbia University’s Arthur Ross Gallery, Modeling History moves between modes of representation, past and present, to explore Frampton’s theory and pedagogy concerning tectonics. The sixteen photographs enclosed in this book by photographer James Ewing reveal the possibilities of Frampton’s radical approach today. Each image reengages with a model built during Frampton’s seminar, but, by playing with the potentials of photography, also aspires to express similar material, tectonic, and poetic realities.

Modeling History is a limited-edition book and not for sale. It will be available on the Reader July 2017.