~\&ov ember, 19 2 0 
35 
SEEING YOUR HOUSE BEFORE IT IS BUILT 
The Scale Model, Accurate in the Details of Color, Form and Site, Is a 
Replica in Miniature of the Finished Dwelling 
ALWYN T. COVELL 
The 1/16" scale model of Mr. C. Norvin Rinek’s house at Easton, Pa., 
is a good example of the plastic type. Photographs of the completed 
house itself appeared in the last August issue, and form an interesting 
comparison with this preliminary study 
P ERHAPS there are only two 
kinds of prospective builders, 
from the architect’s viewpoint— 
the kind that can visualize and 
the kind that can’t. Of course, 
those two kinds are divided up 
into as many varieties as there 
are varieties of people, and the 
architect will remember certain 
ones with pleasure and certain 
others with unhappy sighs. 
Exactly what is meant by 
“visualizing”? More often it is 
called imagination, though that is 
not so accurate a term, because it 
means other things as well. The 
architect must have both imagina¬ 
tion, and the faculty of visualiz¬ 
ing as well; his client needs only 
the ability to visualize what the 
architect has imagined. Both are 
gifts, which may or may not be 
possible to cultivate; certainly 
failure to possess either is as lit¬ 
tle to be regarded as a personal 
shortcoming as lacking an eye for 
color, an ear for music, or a sense of proportion. 
In the matter of architectural models, how¬ 
ever, even the highly imaginative architectural 
visualizer may find very definite assistance and 
assurance, while his client will find the answer 
to many questions which the drawings do not 
answer for him. Architectural drawings, ex¬ 
cepting the colored preliminary perspective 
view, are not pictures of the proposed house— 
they are drawings of it. They are drawings, 
furthermore, which are made in a technical 
manner, and with no intent to convey anything 
but forms, dimensions, materials and construc¬ 
tion to the various workmen who will build 
the house. Architectural working drawings 
are accurate, but not at all artistic, just as the 
specifications are accurate, but 
not literary. 
From the point of view of de¬ 
tailed visualization, then, the only 
drawing which tells the client 
what his house will look like is 
the colored perspective, which is 
good as far as it goes. But even 
if it is done well, and is an ac¬ 
curate perspective, the client can¬ 
not walk behind it, or see more 
than one view of the house on any 
one given drawing. 
As a supplementary aid to visu¬ 
alization, then, comes the scale 
model, so called because it is very 
carefully made to scale, in the 
same way that architectural draw¬ 
ings are made. In a model, for 
instance, a quarter of an inch, or 
a half or three-quarters of an 
inch, equals a foot in the actual 
building. In this way the exact 
proportions are shown. 
In making a scale model, espe¬ 
cially if the site for the proposed 
house be irregular in contour, a topographic 
survey should be made, with a drawing show¬ 
ing all the grades, elevations and depressions, 
drawn at the same scale at which the house 
model will be made. 
The plot of land, then, will be modeled in 
clay, in exact conformity with the surveyor’s 
(Continued on page 74) 
In the more elaborate models, every detail is shown to scale. Nothing is left to conjecture—even leader heads and curtains are put 
in. The representation is so complete that one can scarcely believe the photograph is not one of a real house. This model of the 
Philip D. Armour residence is on the scale of l / & ” to 1'. H. T. Lindeberg, architect 
