Inside Outside: Changing Attitudes Towards Architectural Models in the Museums at South Kensington

The union of these collections and the addition of the models ofSt. Paul'sand various classical buildings, betoken what an Architectural Museum may become, if the individuals and the State will act together. Every foreigner who has seen this commencement sees in it the germ of the finest Architectural Museum in Europe, if the public support the attempt.

From the first years of its establishment in June 1857, to the end of the nineteenth century, the South Kensington Museum had amongst its collections over a hundred architectural models. First they were acquired through a policy of encouraged loans and gifts, followed by pro-actively commissioning model makers; other models, however, were at South Kensington through default, having remained on site where they had been made by ‘sappers'. The models, which included examples of Western, Asian and Far Eastern buildings and monuments, were first shown in displays under the headings of Ornamental, Architectural, Economics, and Educational. To give an indication of their initial importance to the museum, the early guidebooks feature architectural models amongst the ‘principle objects in the gallery'. Twenty years later most models had been transferred from what were essentially style galleries to the more utilitarian displays concerned with architectural and engineering practices, and within them they were merely included as part of the broader contextual themes. By the turn of the century, with the exception of the 1901 handbook to the models of Italian Renaissance painted interiors, they were rarely referred to at all in museum publications. By 1912 (soon after the Science and Art collections had been divided on either side of the Exhibition Road) most of the models were no longer on display and were thought by senior keepers to be of little use to museum collections. Many had been de-accessioned by the 1970s, when their position in the doldrums was reversed and models were once again included in the museum displays and exhibitions. This article explores the changes in attitude towards architectural models during the first 120 years of the V&A, focusing on the models of Western buildings.