Material Models and Immaterial Paradigms in the Rietveld Schröder House

Abstract

In the interplay between scale models and intellectual paradigms, architectural models construct immaterial ideas. This confluence of material and immaterial in architectural modeling is explored through an examination of Gerrit Rietveld's design for the Rietveld Schröder house (1924). His first wood massing model of the project is often considered to have been created before the idea of flowing space and as an instance of Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift. Instead, through Gaston Bachelard's concept of paradigm nesting, the model is shown to be integral to Rietveld's design process that used three mutually exclusive notions of mass across different conceptual terrains.