The use of models in architecture is taken for granted; they are expected, whether physical or abstract. But the response to their aesthetic presence is not limited to the visual. Model Behavior proposes that the architectural model has the same impact on social behavior as the more abstract economic, political, and scientific models that organize our world. Self-proclaimed Congolese architect and artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (1948–2015) said, “Without a model you are nowhere. A nation that can't make models is a nation that doesn't understand things, a nation that doesn't live.” If models make living possible, then Model Behavior asks, what life behaviors do architectural models influence or organize, both within the discipline and in the world?

Cynthia Davidson is an architecture editor, writer, and curator, and cofounder and executive director of the Anyone Corporation, founded in 1990. Among the programs she oversees are Log, a triannual journal she founded in 2003; and Anyspace, a program of pop-up exhibitions in New York. In the 1990s she organized ten international conferences on architecture and edited ANY Magazine (1993–2000). Honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her publication work in 2014, she also cocurated The Architectural Imagination for the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, which traveled to Detroit and Los Angeles in 2017. She is responsible for some 40 books in print, including 24 in the Writing Architecture series published by MIT Press. Davidson also teaches writing at The Pratt Institute, Cornell University’s Manhattan graduate program, and Princeton University’s School of Architecture. She edited Log 50: Model Behavior and is cocurator of the exhibition Model Behavior.

New Affiliates is a New York–based design practice led by Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb. In addition to ground-up construction and interior renovations, New Affiliates has designed exhibitions for the Jewish Museum and the Shed in New York, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, among others. Diamantopoulou is a visiting lecturer at the Princeton University School of Architecture, and has published in Log, T Magazine, Metropolis, Dwell, Die Zeit, and Architect Magazine. Kolb is an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and was the 2015 Muschenheim Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College. He worked with architect and curator David Chipperfield to organize the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. Kolb was the US editor of Architect Magazine, and in 2018, he guest edited a special section of Log titled Working Queer. New Affiliates is designing Model Behavior.

Jocelyn Beausire is a performance artist, designer, and researcher exploring action-based methodologies as a form of critical spatial practice. She is currently pursuing a master’s of architecture at Princeton University. Beausire provides curatorial research for Model Behavior.

Christina Moushoul is a cofounder of the design practice Office Party and the journal Party Planner. She obtained a master’s of architecture degree at Princeton University in 2022. She provides curatorial logistics for Model Behavior.

Patrick Templeton, assistant curator for Model Behavior, is a Brooklyn-based designer, photographer, and writer, and the managing editor of Log.

Anyone Corporation is a New York-based nonprofit architecture think tank established in December 1990 to advance the knowledge and understanding of architecture and its relationships to the general culture through international conferences, public seminars, exhibitions, books and periodicals that erode boundaries between disciplines and cultures.