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Danish design in miniature


WRITER
Weronica Åström Löhr
If you are passionate about either miniatures or classic Danish design, then Minimii has something for you. If you are one of us who are passionate about both miniatures and Danish design, then you have already cried out; "–Finally!"

Of course, miniatures of design classics like the ones by Arne Jacobsen have been around for a long time, but Minimii goes further and presents an identical copy of Arne Jacobsen´s own villa from 1928 on Gotfred Rodes Vej 2, in Charlottenlund. The house is available in 1:16, which is a little bit smaller than the international scale 1:12.

One of the two owners of Minimii, Linda Stenberg, came up with the idea to produce the miniature house after having searched in vain for a modern dollhouse for her two daughters. So she started Minimii together with Claus Hojer Hansen in 2009, with the goal to deliver toys that appeal to children´s imagination and parents´ sense of quality. Minimii wants to spread knowledge about Danish design as well and what could be a better way for children to learn about Danish design than to play with Arne Jacobsen´s own house in miniature?

Although the dollhouse looks like the original in many ways, some clever solutions had to be made to make it easy and fun to actually be able play with. For instance, the roof and walls of the miniature house can be mounted and dismounted with the help of magnets, which allows several children to play with the house at the same time, just as it will make it easier for the collector to show the interiors. Furthermore, thin layers of iron sheets have been placed in __________________________________________________________________________


between the floors to make it easy to fasten and move around the magnetic lamps, arts and accessories. Each one of the designer lamps added to the collection of Minimii will have its own small lithium battery. There is no need to place the dollhouse near an electrical wall socket.

With permission from Arne Jacobsen´s family and from Fritz Hansen, who makes Jacobsen´s furniture today, Linda and Claus started to produce miniatures of furniture classics like the Egg chair and the Swan chair, both originally designed in 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

In Minimii´s collection we also find timeless designs like the Lounge table, designed in 1968 by Danish Piet Hein with contribution to the base design by Bruno Mathsson and Arne Jacobsen. But naturally, no collection of famous Danish design miniatures would be complete without Denmark´s biggest selling chair throughout all times; Arne Jacobsen´s No7, originally designed for Rødovre City Hall. You can also buy The Swan Sofa 1958, Lounge and Dining tables 1968, __________________________________________________________________________




AJ Floor + Wall lamp 1957, Arne Jacobsen textiles and fabrics. Minimii is planning to produce one or maybe two new pieces of furniture and new accessory collections from great designers in 2011.

Miniatures that look just like the real thing will always amaze people, and also turn some of them into passionate miniature lovers like myself. After all, miniatures have had the same affect on people for hundreds of years, so it is definitely not a new phenomenon.

To give a brief summary of the history of dollhouses, they appeared in Scandinavia in the early 1700, but appeared much earlier in Bayern, Germany. More precisely it started in the middle of the 1500´s with Albrecht, duke of Bayern. He wanted a replica of a palace belonging to a German Prince that he could give to his daughter. Thanks to the inventory of the house we know that the house was 4 stories high, had a garden with a fountain, a little well in silver, one stable and a farmhouse. In the house there was a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom with gold embroidered curtains for the beds, servants´ quarter and a kitchen. The palace was made by the best carpenters that he could find and when it was done he decided to keep it himself.

Besides replicas of castles, miniature houses have also been used for teaching young maids how to run a household, as well as for other tutorial purposes. No matter what reasons the miniature houses were made for, they all needed to be carefully made and of high quality and with attention to details.

Today, miniature makers like Minimii in Denmark continue this very old tradition and create modern quality dollhouses to study, collect and to play with.




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June 16, 2010 15:57 by Tilde

Have seen a lot of minatures of old design classics, but never an entire house! Is this amazing or what.

June 15, 2010 17:57 by Ditte

Well, it's very different from the doll house I had! Maybe I would have turned into a minimalist if I had played with this one.