The Illusion of Scale
By Lena Freberg
World Trade Center Transportation Hub by Santiago Calatrava, New York City.
Wood Ribbon Apartment by Toledano+Architects, Paris, France.
Nests and Thresholds, plywood model by Jacob Dunsmore, UCLA.
Denver International Airport (DEN) by Fentress Architects, Denver, Colorado.
Art Museum by Louis Kahn, Fort Worth, Texas.
Paddington Elizabeth Line Station wood model by Weston Williamson + Partners.
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School concrete and wood model by Henley Halebrown Architects.
Dessert House by Studio Rick Joy, Tucson Arizona.
The Royal National Theatre by Denys Lasdun, South Bank of Thames, London.
Oché House clay model by EovaStudio.
Elbphilharmonie by Herzog & de Meron, Hamburg Germany.
Museum of Modern Aluminum Thailand model by HAS design and research.
Scale is not a measurement but a belief. We think we understand the size of a building because we recognize doors, bodies, trees, and windows; these familiar elements stabilize our perception. When those cues are removed, exaggerated, or misplaced, certainty dissolves. The images in this book test how easily scale can be constructed, and how quickly it can collapse.
Architectural models and buildings appear side by side without hierarchy. A flamingo becomes monumental, a tower becomes miniature, a chair becomes part of the urban context. Collaged objects are inserted not to clarify size but to mislead it. Each composition invites the viewer to decide what is large and what is small.Through recognizable references and comparison, scale emerges. Nothing in these images has changed proportion, but context has shifted.
By disrupting proportional expectations, the book exposes how architectural scale depends less on measurement and more on visual context. What appears vast may be fine; what appears fine may be vast. The book proposes that scale is not embedded in buildings but produced in the act of seeing.
Colophon
All model and building photographs were soureced from publicly available archives and altered by Lena Freberg on Adobe Photoshop. The book was designed and produced in InDesign. Trim size: 8.5 x 11 inches. Set in Bell MT font 15 and 52 point.
Building Books
Ashley Simone Pratt Institute 2026