4 Meredith, Michael, et al. An Unfinished ... Encyclopedia of ... Scale Figures without ... Architecture . Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2018
5 Jones, Dora Epstein. “Little People Everywhere: The Populated Plan.” Log No. 50: Model Behavior , Anyone Corporation, 2021, pp. 59-71. 6 Sadler, Simon. “Games without Frontiers.” In Donetti, D. (ed), Architecture and Dystopia. New York ; Barcelona: Actar, 2019.
the construction of a model society
object-person scale
Although scale figures may seem to be the passive recipients of agency in expression, persuasion or propaganda because they are reproductions of people , projections of people inescapably latch onto them – masculine, feminine, misfit, sitting, standing, stereotypical, atypical, young, old. Rather than cartoons that represent the individual designer’s world-building endeavour, as Dora Epstein Jones describes it, 5 scale figures should be understood as a collective phenomenon that reflects that which society thinks is ideal. Gender, race, posture, health and dress, each of these present on a scale figure embodies one aspect of what we project as the normative human. The act of populating the model or drawing with scale figures carries an inherent social discipline that normalises the inhabitants of an ideal society. We should be aware of how we choose to use these tools, and be alert that such decisions are not always as conscious as we want them to be. Such awareness creates a new paradox — first, too much demographic specificity in scale figures distracts the viewer from the crux of the model or drawing. Second, what is an unbiased, non- idealist approach to the use of scale figures? Even if there is one, how do we focus on the figure’s ways of relating to and interacting with the space, rather than the personality or eccentricity of the scale figure itself? The scale figure as a utilitarian tool functions as a measure of scale, proportion, activity and convention. Demographic representation as an added utility is a sign that utopianism, an enlightenment egalitarianism, is shifting to identity as the representation of personhood. 6 Generally in architectural scale figures a vestigial universalism lingers:whiteness and gender stereotypes prevail. To neglect the distinction between inclusivity and convention, and to mistake one for the other, is equally troubling. Inclusivity is a resistance to an idealised projection, and it must be achieved by abandoning one or more conceptions of what has been normalised. Intentionality in the choice of scale figures however, results in another projection of an idealised demographic that is equally and inevitably subjective and limited.
In their book of over 1000 scale figures, An Unfinished ... Encyclopedia of ... Scale Figures without ... Architecture , Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample argue that architects are responsible for the drawing or rendering of figures that might occupy their space. 4 Documenting a wide variety of scale figures, copied, collaged, rendered, or hand-drawn by prominent architects, this book demonstrates a degree of self-reference at a small scale across different resolutions, from a direct self-portrait cropped photo placed in a render — a personal reference that the inhabitant is the architect themselves, to suit-and-tie figures metaphorical of Homo faber (working man), to nonspecific references to general people, to cursive or abstracted representations barely recognisable as humans. Meredith and Sample present scale figures detached from an architectural environment or proposition, rather as an intellectual exploration of them as variably personified objects. While the scale figure might occupy an awkward, lonely position as an architectural device, scale figures outside architecture have other lives as sculpture, art objects and as toys. Early records of scale figures used to simulate military tactics can be traced to the seventeenth century in Europe. Unless a lead soldier is still being used in a model battlefield, its role is as a toy, and more latterly as a cultural collectible. The collector is less involved in playability and more interested in the figurine itself. Whether a toy or a relic, they contain the property of personhood. If Alfred Gell had been writing Art and Agency: an anthropological theory now instead of 1998, his agency theory might have expanded from dolls to a variety of anthropomorphic playthings across the scale of personification: model figures, pose-able action figures and nendoroids. Garage Kits (GK) of anime, movies, and games are miniature resin sculptures of human shape – a line of highly fetishised scale figures. Their charisma as art toys, designer toys, and pop sculpture originates from the 2-d drawing of anime characters in concept design. They represent a representation. When such figures are used in architectural presentation, they represent a cultural position. Using recognisable little objects of greater or lesser charisma provides animation to an otherwise unpopulated and bleak abstraction of space and building. The greater the personality of the scale figure, the easier is the entry to the architecture being represented. If we are searching for personhood to identify with, we are pre-disposed to think about the architecture as a space populated with people we know.
from left to right: TenGuSan limited edition vinyl art toy featuring himself in a Japanese Tengu mask by LTNC Toys, 269USD Francesca Perani Enterprise studio, illustrative scale figure. Figures at four different scales
Scale figures from the renderings of (in order): Bernard Tschumi, First Office and Frank Gehry SANAA scale figure
Vinyl Pulse
cutoutmix.com
on site review 39: Tools 26
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