Scales

Some indigenous people who had lived many years in the jungle visited a savannah for the first time in their lives and, upon seeing a human figure in that vast expanse, commented that “People around here are very small.” “Small people,” to them, represented literal reality; it was not a metaphor. We may laugh at them as being “childlike,” but when the contemporary architect “I” remarks: “It’s as if a large model itself becomes a building,” can’t we say that something similar to that story is taking place? What if someone looked at an actual building and said, “That model is very large”? — Naoya Hatakeyama Scales is the result of a commission by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montréal, given to Naoya Hatakeyama to create a work in response to photographs of architectural models in the Collection. In this beautifully produced book, featuring tipped-in plates and an 8-page gatefold, the artist presents his three series New York / Tobu World Square, 2003–2004; New York / Window of the World, 2006; and Tokyo / Mori Building, 2003. Scales accompanies Hatakeyama’s solo exhibition at the this Autumn. It includes a text by the author and illuminating essays by Hubertus von Amelunxen and Louise Désy.