Extreme Real Buildings

Architecture as the main subject, not the background

Most modeling literature takes buildings as an accompaniment to vehicles. This publication turns that around: a building is the object of interest in itself and the vehicles, if there are any at all, stand off to one side. The author is Emmanuel Nouaillier, a French builder renowned for how convincingly he can capture aging brickwork, fallen render and the dusty windows of industrial premises.

What subjects the book follows

The center of gravity is urban and suburban corners of the twentieth century: brick workshops, abandoned garages, shop fronts with faded lettering, yards with rusty sheet metal and walls on which coats of paint from several eras are layered. It is precisely these settings that cannot be built out of a box, because their charm lies in irregularity and in the small traces of use.

Techniques

The publication takes apart the making of brick bonds, work with render compounds, scribing the joints, breaking off and sanding through areas, painting by layering and with glazes, damp patches, rust running down a facade and the way to set a building into the surrounding terrain. Light gets a large space, and so does its influence on the way brickwork appears.

Working the material

The book is kept as a pictorial one, with detailed shots of finished work and with step-by-step documentation. It can be drawn on by mere looking even without a knowledge of the language, because the steps are captured graphically and the photographs always show the area before and after the intervention. Anyone who builds urban scenes regularly will come back to it as a pictorial model rather than as reading for one evening.