Model Behavior

Models, whether physical or digital, are intrinsic to architecture. Just as other fields, such as science, mathematics, politics, and economics use models to visualize, reflect, and predict behaviors, so do architectural models. Model Behavior, a group exhibition presented by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and the Anyone Corporation, considers how architectural models contribute to shaping social behaviors. Running from October 4 through November 18, 2022, in the colonnade of Cooper Union’s historic Foundation Building, Model Behavior features more than 60 works and objects by 44 artists and architects including artists Olafur Eliasson, Isamu Noguchi, Ekow Nimako, and Thomas Demand, and architects Peter Eisenman, Darell Wayne Fields, Greg Lynn, Forensic Architects (Eyal Weizman), First Office (Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood), MALL (Jennifer Bonner), Ensamble (Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril), and Höweler and Yoon (Eric Höweler and Meejin Yoon).

“We are at a critical juncture, a time when we need to examine the models that have long been in use,” explains exhibition curator Cynthia Davidson. She is also editor of the independent architecture journal Log, which devoted its 50th issue to the many modes of architectural models from structural to material, aesthetic, and social. “As Thomas Demand has said, without models there would be chaos, but our current world models have led to the climate crisis, extreme poverty, and homelessness,” Davidson said. “We need to rewrite those models, especially now as architecture is questioning its methods and intentions.”

Featuring six installations commissioned specifically for the windows of The Cooper Union’s street-level colonnade, as well as animated digital models, videos, photographs, renderings, and augmented reality, Model Behavior interrogates how architectural models elicit and project social behaviors. Objects on view represent a multitude of disciplines ranging from toys and scientific models to traditional physical architectural models, such as a laser-cut plexiglass and paper model by architect Stan Allen for Frederic Church’s Olana and a resin World Trade Center from Constantin and Laurene Leon Boym’s Buildings of Disaster series. The windows, each set in a three-foot-deep niche, are treated like shop windows filled with dioramas and objects that are visible from the sidewalk. This installation site is another examination of how models prompt social behavior, as visitors may or may not choose to further explore the exhibition by entering the Foundation Building.

“Model making is central to all architectural education and practice, but our role as architects and educators is to consider the societal impact of our design and that starts with this foundational and iterative piece of the design process,” says Hayley Eber, acting dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

Talks
Models as Ethical Agents: October 10, 6:30pm, with art historian Annabel J. Wharton
Great Hall

The Broken World Model of Design: November 8, 6:30pm, with architect Kiel Moe
Great Hall

Exhibition design by New Affiliates. Generous support for Model Behavior has been provided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.