The architectural scale model can be perceived as a mechanism for thinking, mediating between the confusion of nature and human designs. This chapter (Plate 8) is a mediation and a crossing between the first two and final two chapters. It will not only summarize earlier points but will also introduce complex ideas which will be more completely developed later. In this central position, this study turns to the etymologies of such words as ‘model’ and ‘machine.’ Understanding the derivations of these terms can offer important insight into the use of the scale model and will help develop a general understanding of architectural issues (Figure 3.2).
The word ‘model’ is borrowed from Middle French modele, from Italian modello, a model or mold, from the vulgar
3.1 Janus, Roman god of doorways
3.2 Le Corbusier with an architectural model
Latin modellus. Modellus is a diminutive of the Latin modulus, a diminutive of modus, which means to measure. A model is typ-ically a small object, usually built to scale, that represents another, often larger, object. It can be a preliminary pattern, serving as a plan, from which an item not yet constructed will be produced. A model can also offer a tentative description of a theory or system that accounts for all its known properties.1 Architectural scale models operate in all of these areas, not only defining a future building but also partakes in the defin-ition of a culture’s cosmos.
It is generally accepted that Thales measured the height of the pyramids by the shadow they cast, taking the observa-tion at the hour when the length of a human’s shadow equals his or her height (Figure 3.3). The shadow offered Thales an understandable scale with which to measure the unknown.2
3.3 Thales of Miletus
For, when humans develop a measure, they are offered a stand-ard, an acceptable unit of quantitative or qualitative value by which something intangible is determined or regulated. In this sense, measuring is important in the search for understanding.
However, if the measurement is not fully defined, the devel-opment of the measurement process becomes, itself, an essen-tial part of the process of understanding.
Each measurement of an unknown involves comparing it with a carefully conserved known. In the development of measurement several steps, not always apparent, are involved:
an unknown is measured by comparing it directly with a known device or with a measuring device or instrument that has been previously developed to agree with reference measurement standards.3These reference standards are calibrated from time to time by comparing them with a higher-level generally agreed-upon reference standard (Figure 3.4).
Measuring devices such as rulers, scales, and various kinds of meters are manufactured in accordance with a reference standard. It is through humanity’s attempts at measuring invis-ible things that humans produce not only units of measure such as inches, liters and pounds, but also the philosophies and belief systems needed to measure and define the interpretations of the scale model. The scale model offers humans an under-standable surface (framework) upon which they can project and develop their measures of invisible things. What individuals see reflected in their measurements is affected by the current con-cept (reference standard) of what is invisible. This idea will be developed further in later chapters.
It can be stated that, ‘Measurement is the process used to answer the questions: How many? How much? Measurement, broadly defined, can be made by the unaided human senses and brain – for example, in estimating distances dimensions, temperatures, and weights. In general, however, man’s capa-bilities need be both extended and refined by instruments.’4 These instruments for measuring are typically manufactured by machines (Figure 3.5).
A machine is generally considered to be something with a practical purpose, a device that substitutes for or extends humankind’s own forces. The word itself has the same ety-mological root as ‘might.’ The word ‘machine’ comes from the Latin machina and the Greek words mechane, meaning devices or contrivances for doing a thing, and mechos, mean-ing ‘the means’ or ‘the way by which somethmean-ing is expedited.’5
3.4 Balance and weights
3.5 IBM processing machine
The study will describe several interesting theories encompassing the idea of machines. It will note the view that machines are an interaction of parts, with other parts, within a whole (or system) unintentionally producing purposive activity and/or function. It will also point to the theory that all phe-nomena can be explained in terms of the principles by which machines (mechanical systems) are explained, without recourse to intelligence as an operating cause or principle.6
These theories present a fairly wide view of what a machine is, and subsequently explain in part why some con-sider that machines, unlike tools, have an important ability to take on a life of their own. It should be noted that, historically, machines were often regarded as toys or agents of magic, marvel and fantasy (Figure 3.6); for philosophers, they have served as symbols and metaphors.7
Chapter I pointed out that Vitruvius, in the Ten Books of Architecture, devotes the entire last book to the study of machines. It is within this last book that Vitruvius discusses scale models. A machine can be a structural or constructed thing, which is why many architects consider a building a machine.
The architectural model is typically seen as a small-scale machine suggesting a representation of a possible future of a larger machine. In other words, the model machine is a scale device that helps humans extend their intellectual might in an attempt to understand and define the measure of a complex whole.
The architectural scale model is a mechanism for develop-ing definition, mediatdevelop-ing between perceived chaos and human designs. Sitting between lifelessness and the uncanny, the model offers a measurable scale within which to develop narratives, myths, and buildings.
It is through the attempt to measure things that are invis-ible that humanity creates the analogies – the reference standards – which serve as a framework within which to develop the interpretive narrations of our scale model machine. In other words, the measurer’s relationship with the invisible is impor-tant for defining the measurement through the scale model machine. For example, the Catholic religion itself is measured through the cathedral. The building demonstrates the story of medieval Catholicism to an illiterate population through sculp-ture and stained glass windows. Each door and window defines the religion in a simple direct way to the reader. The building becomes a device for thinking about the measurements of the
3.6 Toy as agent of magic, marvel and fantasy
organization of the church and, thus, is an example of a scale model machine (Plate 9).
The cathedral illustrates concepts of the scale model machine. It offers a good example of the idea that the model machine presents an understandable surface (framework) from which to project and define invisible things. It is a scale model, both mediating between the order of the known and the chaos of the unknown. The possibility of measurement imparts a small amount of control to humans. Nevertheless, like a crys-tal ball, tea leaves left in a cup, or smoke in an alchemist’s tort, users can never be sure how the message of the scale model machine will be interpreted on any given day.
This point can be further illustrated with the following discussion concerning the projection of unconscious imagery.
This imagery is the reflection of an individual’s unconscious from the surface of his or her scale model machine.
Individuals’ relationships with their scale model machines are typically a blend of religious science and scientific religion, combining a scientific pursuit of nature’s secrets with a reli-gious quest aiming at measuring ultimate nature (Figure 3.7).
The scale model machine has thus an exoteric or scientific aspect, and an esoteric or mystical aspect. In explaining the development of esoteric or mystical measuring, one encounters
3.7 Nostrodamus making calculations
the psychological phenomenon of projection and the universal law that nature abhors a vacuum. It is human nature to look for order within the vacuum of chaos. As the age-long investiga-tion of order plunges humanity into a dark void, the darkness is finally defined by the groping psyche of the measurer who projects thoughts on to the mechanism of the scale model.
Thus, through the indirect methods of projection and free association, the measurer comes to activate the unconscious which allies itself to his or her work in the form of hallucinatory or visionary experiences.8
The reference standards of Christianity, for example, looked for a tightly controlled measure defined in a specific way, compatible with church doctrine. A process using a scale model machine that appeared to deal with such unexplainables as alchemy or magic would appear suspect in such a controlled environment. A scale model machine providing a more tightly controlled definition was much more acceptable.
The cathedral, though operating as a scale model machine, maintained greater control over its user’s projections than the stick. The church did not necessarily wish the parish-ioners to jump to too many wrong conclusions. The Catholic religion presented the reader with a relatively tightly con-trolled narration, since the church had configured a specific solution to the condition of the unknown. It is not surprising that competing reference standards such as myths, legends, witchcraft, and modern science were frowned upon in such an environment. The church did not allow the reader much opportunity for misinterpretation of the measure.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, errors in meas-urement may result from imperfect operator performance.
Measurement, it seems, was historically developed from the corporal or human measurement, for human measurement.
For example, during the Renaissance, numerous inconsisten-cies in the church’s defining measurements were noted. This occurred because the human measurer was allowed a renewed freedom to interpret and define invisible things. This shift in the individual’s ability to interpret and define also has an effect on the manner of the thing defined.
The etymology of the word ‘manner’ is related to that of
‘modus.’ Certainly one of the key definitions of the word
‘manner’ is that it is a character that makes an artist’s or archi-tect’s work uniquely his or her own. ‘Manner’ comes from the Latin, ‘of the hand.’ It means kind, sort, nature, or character
of a thing. It is a characteristic or customary mode of acting, as in habit, usage, or custom. Manner is the nature or normal behavior of a thing.9
Though the word ‘mode’ is related directly to ‘model’
and ‘measure,’ it is most closely related to the word ‘manner.’
A mode is a prevailing fashion or style of dress or behavior. It can be a musical arrangement or rhythmical scheme; ‘mode’
relates to architecture by setting a mood, a temporary state of mind or feeling.10
When speaking of mode, Kant used the word modalitat, usually translated as modality, which meant the manner as actual, as possible, or as necessary – in which something existed. Locke defined mode as the manner in which an idea is known. Mode to Spinoza was, ‘that which exists in and through, something other than itself.’
The scale model serves as a mode by being a mechanism for measuring or defining manners. The manner of the meas-ure, developed through these models, is human and therefore imprecise. Architects have learned that the imprecision in their scale model machines is necessary because that is a reflection of being human.
The word model also relates to the word ‘modest’ through the Latin modus. ‘Modest’ means having a limited and not exaggerated estimate of one’s ability or worth, or lacking in
3.8 Al Smith and the Empire State Building model
vanity or conceit, or not bold or self-assertive. It can mean being free from exaggeration or overstatement. Modest can mean reasonable, moderate, or conventional in dress and behavior, or limited in size or amount. Modest also means not in excess. In its archaic form to be modest means to exercise control over or to act as a mediator or to be in the middle.
This is quite similar to the word ‘moderate,’ which means characterized by an avoidance of extremes of behavior. The modest measure reflects the mode.
The reflection of current thoughts and experiences from the scale model is a measure of modernity. The ‘modern,’
which comes from modus, means something that reflects the manner of today. The measure of architecture has always been related to its manner. Without manner, it becomes impossible to understand what is being measured. This is why, as society changes, so does the definition of manner. The scale model machine extends the architect’s own modest ability to measure the perceived chaos of the unknown. The scale model is our modest mode in which the manner is measured (Figure 3.8).
The next two chapters will expand on these concepts.
Notes
1. ‘Model’, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, (Springfield, MA: C.G. Merriam Co., 1967), II, p. 1451.
2. Aristotle describes Thales of Miletus as the founder of European philosophy. For this reason, Thales is important in bridging the worlds of myth and reason.
3. ‘Measure’, Encyclopedia Americana, (Danbury, CT: Encyclopedia Americana, 1982), XVIII, p. 585.
4. ‘Measurement, principles and instruments of’, Encyclopedia Britannica, (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974), XI, p. 728.
5. ‘Machine’, Webster’s Third International Dictionary, op. cit., p. 1353.
6. Angeles, Peter A., Dictionary of Philosophy, (New York, NY:
Barnes and Noble Books, 1981), pp. 166–167.
7. Hulten, K.G. Pontus, The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, (New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 1968), p. 6.
8. Johannes, Fabricius, Alchemy (paraphrased), (Copenhagen, Denmark: Rosenkilde and Bragges, 1976), p. 97.
9. ‘Manner’, Webster’s Third International Dictionary, op. cit., p. 1376.
10. ‘Mode’, Webster’s II, New Riverside University Dictionary, (Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1984), p. 761.
11. Angeles, op. cit., p. 177.
12. ‘Moderate’, Webster’s II, op. cit., p. 761.