'With most shows, you're objectifying architecture.… I didn't want to put any images of the buildings in the show. I wanted it to be about ideas.'

摘要

Architectural models can be quite beautiful, and they are often exhibited in museums, but they tend to be little more than miniature versions of proposed buildings. Brad Cloepfil, aia, founder of the Portland, Ore.-based firm Allied Works Architecture, creates models that are something else entirely. Made of wood, glass, resin, porcelain, copper, brass, and even pencils, they're more like abstract sculptures-and they're rarely seen by clients. Dean Sobel, director of the Cloepfil-designed Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, argues that the architect's drawings and models-while never intended to be displayed as artwork-share similarities with works by post-minimalists like Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, and Jackie Winsor. "Cloepfil," Sobel says, "has worked at the intersection of architecture, sculpture, and drawing since the beginning of his career."