Real vs Ideal: Themed Tours of Bekonscot Model Village

"Some people lose their sense of proportion, I've lost my sense of scale."
Will Self (Scale, 1992)

Guided Tour as Research Dissemination
For Architecture week in 2004 I became a tour guide at Bekonscot Model Village in Beaconsfield to disseminate 3 years research into model villages. The guided tours offered a critical insight into model villages in the UK and across the globe and their connection to 'ideals' at a range of scales. The tours were featured as part of Architecture Week, organised by Arts Council of England and the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The Real vs Ideal tours discussed the micro narratives within Beckonscot in relation to the real-world contexts that shaped them and which they in turn seek to reflect. They referred to findings from the other model villages I had visited during my research and to ideas of architectural models more broadly.

Christian Hubert's essay 'The Ruins of Representation' in the catalogue for the 1981 exhibition 'Idea as Model' formed a theoretical grounding for the talks while Will Self's Novel 'Scale' which is set in Bekonscot offered a contemporary fictional narrative overlay. The Model Village may appear as harmless tourist attraction but what exactly do these micro narratives tell us about the world they depict and whose ideal do they depict?