This article deals with the work of the Austrian architect Hermann Czech. Czech gained fame throughout Europe in the 1970s with his delicate architectural reconversions of bars in Vienna and several public buildings, based on the strategy of continuation and convention instead of contrast. This article explores the connections between the themes of the Baroque and traces of it in the work of Czech. Amid a climate of reformation and avant-gardism, his critical and early postmodern position forms an important counterpart, pleading for subtlety, irony and undogmatic use of historical knowledge. Although Czech himself evades literal relations between the Baroque and his own work, his Vienna-based practice seems to be imbued with it.

In the editorial, the editors of this OASE address the specific qualities of the model, separate from the often empirical way it is used in the professional domain of architecture. They emphasize that the objective of this OASE is in fact to examine the dividing line between architecture and art, as well as the role the model plays as an autonomous object in both domains. The focus is on the model, based on the question of what exactly the model object can be and can signify when something other than its representative character is emphasized. The editorial places the various contributions in the issue against the background of this question.

This interview with Adam Caruso, principal of Caruso St John Architects in London, deals with the use of models in their practice and more in general with the problem of the representation of architecture. The practice of Caruso St John deals with models in a strong pictorial way, as only images of the model will be presented instead of the object itself. The model itself is treated in a transient way: like the drawing, the model forms one of the tools for constant architectural research. The article elaborates on the role of architectural models as a grateful tool to investigate the present-day neglected interest in the architecture of the interior, of key importance in the practice of Caruso St John.

Architecture is the product of a combination of parties, of a process in which architects respond to their clients. Yet despite the attention paid to a few famed clients, like Truus Schröder, architecture is often examined and explained on the basis of the considerations of the architect, embodied in the object, and the ideas developed within the design discipline. This issue of OASE looks at the influence of the client on the way buildings or urban ensembles take shape. This is a historiographic revision: clients often prove to have creative impulses of their own, and their social views have had an impact on the evolution of architectonic cultures. The issue also includes conversations with clients who explicitly view their work as a contribution to the culture of building and the sustainable development of urban societies. In an era in which both clients and architects are compelled to reflect on their role and responsibility, a re-reading of architecture history from the perspective of the commission is more than necessary.