Photographer James Ewing was given a studio and several weeks to creatively photograph architectural models made by students of the Columbia GSAPP between 1994 and 2003. The resulting work will form a show, "Stagecraft: Models and Photos," that opens at the GSAPP on February 9th.

Featuring photographs of models of structures such as Le Corbusier's Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux, Norman Foster's Renault Distribution Center, and Peter Zumthor's Saint Benedict Chapel among others, the photographs avoid the atmosphere of your typical two-in-the-morning-on-a-work-day professional studio snaps, instead investing each of these models with unusual drama.

Because the models and the photographer are so removed from the original architectural design process, the work is necessarily interpretive. These are miniature echo chambers of history, models of models of structures some of these students undoubtedly visited in real life, photographed against occasionally surreal backdrops.