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Cyril Veillon, Nadja Maillard (eds.)

Isle of Models

Architecture and Scale


Book design: Omnigroup, Lausanne

English (alle texts) and German/French/Italian
176 pages, ca. 70 images
16,5 × 23,2 cm, softcover

Euro (D) 25.– / Euro (A) 25.70



ISBN 978-3-03863-053-1

out of print
CHF   29.00


→ The model as a tool in the design process: precise analyses of a crucial instrument in architectural work

→ An anthology with intelligent contributions for architects, students and teachers

Why do we still need physical models to design and carry out architectural projects in the digital age, despite the possibilities of rendering and simulating buildings and connected spaces?
Isle of Models sets out in search of answers to this question based on the central role of model making in the School of architecture at EPFL Lausanne.
From façade sections, spatial studies and structural models to studies of form, the contributing authors analyse the nature and relevance of the model in architectural design. The history of the model, its use in historical architectural production is also discussed in this framework.

The accompanying series of images illustrate the different forms and possibilities which the model can offer for and in the design process.
Be it hypnotic precision in miniaturising reality, an echo of childhood games, or a promise for the future: the model is possessed of extraordinary suggestive power. As a tool or as a communication medium, it lends form to visual or spatial concepts and makes them palpable.
Whatever the role assigned to models, spatial studies, mockups, sculptures, etc.—given their importance in developing and creating a building it goes without saying that a significant share of all building history was erected upon their diminutive foundations.

With contributions by Nadja Maillard, Cyril Veillon, Christophe Van Gerrewey, Nicola Braghieri, Atelier East, Eric Lapierre, Jo Taillieu and others.

About the Editors

Cyril Veillon graduated from the University of Paris VIII. From 2004 to 2007 he taught at the Multimedia- und Kunstschule EMAF in Freiburg, Switzerland, opening a contemporary art gallery in Lausanne together with Lucy Mackintosh in 2004. He has produced art and architecture exhibitions in Lausanne, Zurich, London, Shanghai and Dubai. In 2008, he was appointed director of the Archizoom exhibition space at EPFL Lausanne.

Nadja Maillard studied history and anthropology, graduating from the EPF Lausanne with a thesis on the history of architecture. Maillard is an
academic staff member at the head office Departement Architecture of EPFL Lausanne. As an author and editor, she is currently working on a publication dealing with questions relating to construction and living.

Nicola Braghieri is a graduate of the Polytechnic of Milan, he completed his PhD at the University of Genoa with a research on the theory of tradition. He is currently professor at the EPFL Lausanne. His studies and research mainly concern the topics of architectural figuration, tradition, rhetoric and tectonics. He is active, under various pseudonyms, in the field of digital fine arts.

Anja Fröhlich and Martin Fröhlich
Anja Fröhlich graduated in Architecture at the Bauhaus-University, Weimar and at the University of Technology, Graz. Martin Fröhlich graduated in Architecture at the Bauhaus-University, Weimar. Since 2012 he teaches together with Anja Fröhlich at the EPFL Lausanne. Going beyond the traditional notion of functionally determined typologies, their Laboratory of Elementary Architecture and Studies of Types (EAST) is concerned more broadly with the principles of architectural design typologies.

Christophe Van Gerrewey is an architectural and literary theorist. In 2014 he obtained his PhD at Ghent University College (BE), with a study of the writings of architecture critic Geert Bekaert. He has published in journals such as Architectural Theory Review, LOG, Journal of Architecture, A+U and 2G. He is co-editor of several issues of OASE. He is also the author of two novels and a collection of essays.

Eric Lapierre (1966) is an architect, architecture teacher (theory and project design), theoretician of architecture, writer and curator, based in Paris. He teaches since twenty years at the school of architecture of Paris-Est (Marne-la-Vallée). Since 2020, he is an associate professor at the EPFL Lausanne and leads the Studio d’architecture théorie et expérience (Uplapierre).

Jo Taillieu studied architecture at LUCA School of Arts, faculty of Architecture, part of the University of Leuven, campus Sint-Lucas Ghent, and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee. Since 2020, he is an associate professor at the EPFL Lausanne and heads the Laboratoire d’imagination et de Fabrication (LIF).

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