In September 1931, a grand display of contemporary Norwegian architecture was shown in the House of Artists in Oslo. The recently inaugurated Kunsthalle was filled to the brim by scale models, photographs, drawings, and installations. At the core of the exhibition was the “Permanent Collection” of scale models and photography, founded by Norwegian architects in 1925. In different configurations, the collection travelled to Brussels, Kiel, Helsinki, Budapest, Berlin, Milan, Paris and New York as part of the international display and circulation of architectural modernism.

Model as Ruin returns to this model collection, fragments of which have miraculously survived in the Oslo City Archives. The fragile models testify to another modernism; not white and austere but colourful, diverse, and full of detail.

Model as Ruin is curated by Mari Lending, Mari Hvattum and master students, in collaboration with Kunstnernes Hus.