Model Sub-Products over Time
This graphic represents the share of time and effort architects have put into using the myriad types of model throughout time. It is represented as a zero sum total. 


BCE800 CE
The profession has yet to form, models are often used in burial and religious ceremonies. 


1300—1400 The Renaissance births the profession and Alberti writes about models as integral to architectural design, presentation, and construction.

16501700 The late Renaissance brought about a decline of the design model and a rise in the presentation model. Also interest in the architecture of antiquity led to a surge of cork and plaster anthropological models. 

19201980 Modernism saw a resurgence of the study model in finding new forms, tectonics, and logics. The abstract model also played a part in some political transitions. 

1995—2020 The digital model arrives. Analogue,Design, and presentation uses are merged and blurred into virtual duplicates. Today many design primarily through the model on a screen. Its use as a single source of truth also complicates issues of ownership and authorship. In visualization the technologies of VR and AR are pushing it to even more polygonal fidelity and use diversity.