ABSTRACT
Works in the Vedute collection display both book- and model-like qualities: the act of making a work for the collection is referred to, by architect and contributor Andrew MacNair, as 'writing architecture and building books'. The Vedute spatial manuscripts achieve autonomy from the role of referent to a built work: they are not part of a series moving towards a built work. The three-dimensional manuscripts of the Vedute collection have the format and form of books, and derive their dimensions from books. Both the book and the model possess a shared objecthood. Books and models operate as a duality of material presence: as a sign of something else, and an autonomous project: they are both explanandum and explanans. The specificity of the fixed dimensions of the Vedute collection means that each work is both a container and the contained, both perimeter and volume. Each work opens to reveal its interior and asks the reader to participate in its unpacking.
