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Please send letters for the website, clearly marked FORUM, to Julia Dawson at: julia.dawson@emap.com or The Architectural Review, Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, England.

MODELS: ARCHITECTURE AND THE MINIATURE

SIR: A first-time author is happy to have their book get any notice in Architectural Review good, bad or mixed.  I do think it unfortunate, however, that my book on scale models was handed to the managing director of a professional model-making firm for review.  The main point of criticism brought up repeatedly, that the book was biased toward education and included students‚ work, rather missed the stated point of the exercise which intended to treat how models are handled pedagogically.  All the professional examples were tied to this academic focus as well.  Even the first line on the back of the book makes this emphasis clear.  I cannot help but feel the book was misread or not closely read by the critic who naturally promoted his point-of-view in regard to  models and their manufacture.  I remain more interested in rough and speculative models which might guide us somewhere new rather than somewhere pretty.
Yours etc
Mark Morris, author of Models: Architecture and the Miniature