For fifty years, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has shaped skylines across the globe. From supertall towers and mixed-use developments to airports, civic landmarks, and master-planned communities, the firm’s work has become part of the identity of cities on nearly every continent.
This summer, that remarkable legacy is being celebrated in New York.
Inside the historic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library, KPF has opened its landmark 50th Anniversary Exhibition, bringing together five decades of architectural thinking through original sketches, drawings, photography, and an extraordinary collection of physical architectural scale models. More than a retrospective, the exhibition invites visitors to experience the evolution of projects that have influenced how millions of people live, work, travel, and connect.
For QZY Models, seeing these models on public display is both a proud professional milestone and the culmination of months of collaboration behind the scenes.
Long before the exhibition welcomed its first visitors, our team in Shenzhen was entrusted with transforming some of KPF’s most celebrated projects into museum-quality architectural scale models. It was a commission that demanded far more than technical accuracy. Every model had to reflect the design philosophy, craftsmanship, and attention to detail that have defined KPF for half a century.
One of the greatest strengths of the exhibition is the way it allows visitors to experience architecture at a human scale.
While drawings and digital visualisations explain the design process, it is the physical models that consistently draw people closer. Throughout the galleries, visitors pause around the models, studying façades, tracing streets with their eyes, discussing urban layouts, and discovering details that would be almost impossible to appreciate through a screen alone.
This has always been the unique power of architectural scale models. They transform complex buildings into tangible experiences, allowing architects, developers, clients, and the public to understand proportion, context, and spatial relationships almost instinctively.
For an exhibition celebrating one of the world’s most influential architectural practices, there could be no better medium.
For the QZY Models team, however, the exhibition represents far more than a collection of finished display pieces. Behind every completed model lies months of engineering, fabrication, refinement, and collaboration.
Working directly from KPF’s BIM data, CAD documentation, architectural drawings, and project specifications, our engineers and craftsmen meticulously translated digital information into physical form. Every façade rhythm, structural element, landscaped space, and lighting feature was reviewed countless times before production began.
Exhibition models differ significantly from conventional presentation models.
Unlike models intended primarily for client meetings or planning submissions, museum pieces must withstand exceptionally close scrutiny. Visitors often examine them from only a few centimetres away, making every joint, every material transition, every glazing detail, and every landscaped element part of the overall experience.
It is this level of precision that transforms an architectural model into an exhibition piece worthy of standing alongside the work of one of the world’s leading design practices.
Among the exhibition’s most striking works is the scale model of Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 5, one of the largest and most ambitious aviation developments currently under construction anywhere in the world.
Representing a project of this scale presents a unique challenge. Unlike a standalone tower or civic building, an international airport is an interconnected system of architecture, transportation, infrastructure, and landscape.
The completed model captures that complexity beautifully.
From the sweeping roof geometry of the terminal to aircraft stands, taxiways, transport links, and surrounding infrastructure, every component contributes to an immediate understanding of the project’s immense scale—something that even the most sophisticated digital renderings struggle to communicate.
Standing in front of the model, visitors don’t simply observe the project.
They begin to understand it.
Of course, producing the models was only half the journey.
Transporting exhibition-quality architectural models across the Pacific to one of New York’s most iconic cultural institutions required the same level of planning as their fabrication.
Each model travelled inside custom-engineered protective flight cases designed specifically for international transportation, ensuring every delicate façade, landscape feature, and lighting component arrived in perfect condition.
Once in Manhattan, members of the QZY Models technical team joined KPF on site at the New York Public Library to oversee installation personally.
Inside one of America’s most recognisable public buildings, our specialists carefully unpacked each model, completed assembly, calibrated lighting systems, carried out final cleaning, and ensured every presentation detail met the standard expected for an exhibition of this significance.
For projects like this, installation is never an afterthought.
It is the final stage of craftsmanship.
As visitors continue to explore KPF’s 50th Anniversary Exhibition throughout New York, they will encounter remarkable architecture represented in one of its most timeless forms—the physical architectural model.
Each model captures more than a building.
It captures years of design thinking, collaboration, technical innovation, and the ambition to shape cities for generations to come.
For QZY Models, contributing to this exhibition has been an extraordinary privilege.
Working alongside KPF on projects of international significance reflects the level of precision, trust, and craftsmanship that defines everything we do. It is also a reminder that, even in an age of artificial intelligence, real-time rendering, and immersive digital visualisation, the physical architectural model continues to hold a unique place in the architectural profession.
Some ideas simply deserve to be experienced in three dimensions.
As KPF celebrates fifty years of shaping the world’s skylines, we are proud that our craftsmanship has become part of the story. Whether for international exhibitions, developer sales galleries, airport visitor centres, or museum installations, QZY Models continues to partner with leading architects, developers, and institutions around the world to create museum-quality architectural scale models that communicate ambitious ideas with clarity, precision, and lasting impact.
About QZY Models
QZY MODELS is a professional model-making company specializing in architectural scale models, industrial models, and urban planning models for global clients.
With more than 20 years of experience, the team provides complete services including:
architectural model design
model fabrication
international packaging and shipping
on-site installation support
These integrated services ensure that every model can be safely transported and efficiently presented anywhere in the world.
🌐 www.qzymodels.com
📧 [email protected]
