In 1987, Heinrich Klotz prompted a dozen architects to conceptualise their ideal museum for a sub-exhibition ‘Das Ideale Museum’ at documenta 8. A few contributions aside, the entries embodied the curator’s contention: museum architecture should create a threshold and then ‘disappear’. This essay discusses the participants’ predilections as a de- sired condition for exhibiting architecture. By ‘eliminating’ the architecture inside, the architect, reborn as an artist, can freely indulge in myth creation, self-reflection, or ideological focusing.

Georges Bataille, in his text ‘Le labyrinthe et la pyramide’ (1935), shows how the discipline of architecture spans the gamut from a reflective activity (the conceptualization of a space) to pure phenomenology (the experience of a space). This same dichotomy is also found in the architectural model. A model provides an overview of a project to be built, while also simulating the experience of the ‘real’ edifice. Because a model, in architectural practice, is always fettered ‘by the conundrums of representation haunting it’, Vervoort’s essay investigates the modus operandi of the model-based work of such contemporary artists as Rita McBride, Thomas Schütte and Julian Opie. The model, Vervoort argues, provides a dialogue between idea and materialization, offers the viewer an immanent experience and enables the artist to communicate through an opaque form.