This article, in a special issue of ‘History of Technology’, originated in an international workshop initiated and organised by Valeriani at the London School of Economics (2011). Valeriani brings together different fields making materials studied by historians of architecture relevant for the history of science and technology and vice versa.

Extending her research on knowledge formation in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries on the one hand, and on the use of 3D models in architecture on the other, she focuses on ‘in-between objects’ (3D models, scientific instruments, technical drawings and maps), to argue that they played an important role in the merging of ‘knowledge kinds’ in Europe in the period.

Distinctions which had operated in the Middle Ages such as intellectuals/artisans, knowledge/skill were broken down when practically-minded intellectuals, and speculating artisans, navigators and geographers, created knowledge through a series of artifacts that could not have been produced by either of the groups independently.

Valeriani bases her discussion on primary and secondary sources to produce work that extends beyond speculations in the history of ideas and beyond considerations on two-dimensional representations. By considering the materiality of interactions between different social groups and epistemes, Valeriani makes an important contribution to a growing field of research that has been developed in recent years in works such as ‘The Mindful Hand’ (2007) and ‘The Enlightened Economy’ (2009).

Valeriani has been invited to present papers on her research into models to audiences in various academic settings including the Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung (Trier 2012), the international conference The Model, a Tool in the Architectural Project (Paris 2011) and organised an international workshop and an exhibition on a closely related topic at the Royal Society, co-funded by V&A, AHRC, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and Royal Society (2013).