West World

The thing about architectural models is that they are both the thing and not the thing—a point reiterated across the 150 accumulated texts that make up M³: modeled works [archive] 1972–2022, the recent monographic release from Thom Mayne and Morphosis Architects. M for Morphosis, M for Mayne, M for model, one presumes. About the size and shape of a doorstop, with a large, M-shaped hole carved out of the chipboard cover (yes, the same stuff models are made from), M³ offers endless ruminations on the architectural maquette. Models are the world in miniature; models are between the real and the abstract; models are, in the words of twin philosophers Zoolander and Dank Lloyd Wright, “a center for ants.”

But if models are a myriad of things and also not those things, but maybe, definitely something else entirely, what is a hefty volume full of discourse-heavy texts and chockablock with photographs of models?

Mayne and the book’s editors, Hallie Black…