Bücher der Reihe Architektonisches Wissen

The Lloyd's building in London was constructed in the early 1980s based on a vi­sion­ary design by Richard Rogers and Partners. Its planning and construction transformed the ideas of megastructure and intelligent environment into built reality. Mock-ups (prototypic full-size models) played a crucial role in this, enabling Rogers' team to test and refine the necessary novel constructions and procedures to minimize the risks of such an ­ambitious project. Lloyd's 1¿:¿1 is the first case study of one of the most important building projects of the late modern era. It showcases pre­viously unpublished ma­ter­ial from the ­archives of Rogers Stirk Harbour¿+¿Partners, Josef Gartner and Arup to reconstruct the planning process and demonstrate the working methods. Ex­amples of how mock-ups were used as research or planning ­instruments highlight their ­relevance for further developing building culture.

Architectural models made nineteenth-century London. As the city grew it became the global centre of finance, industrial capitalism, and the British Empire. New buildings, urban spaces, and networks of infrastructure were demanded, constructed, and rebuilt. Models were a crucial medium of communication that enabled architects, politicians, and the wider public to conceive the city's expansion of buildings and spaces.Based on extensive research in archives, museums, and period publications, Modelling the Metropolis addresses not just architectural models but also an eclectic range of images and objects - from technical products to sculptures, diagrams to engravings, maps to photographs - that dramatize the politics and aesthetics of London architecture in the nineteenth century.