Our unique Tucson Museum of Miniatures, The Mini-Time Machine, is one of our favorite local attractions. We’ve taken visiting friends and family here for the past few years and all have found it fascinating. You can check out our video on the Museum of Miniatures here.
The first thing visitors usually notice is the state-of-the-art facility. The Mini is definitely not a dusty garage stuffed with old dollhouses. However, in our travels around Southern Arizona writing about & photographing the most interesting people & places, we have come to the conclusion that most locals have no idea what’s here. And they don’t understand why it’s called The Mini-Time Machine. True, the Mini delights school-age children with their whimsical, magical, fairy tale exhibits. But if you’re an adult history buff, this fine museum will reach out and grab your interest. Many of the miniature exhibits transport visitors to another time and place. The Mini showcases miniatures created as far back as 1742.
And then, of course, there’s the extraordinary talent that it takes to make these miniature sets: such amazing precision and attention to the most-minute detail. The exhibit creators have to be artists, craftsmen, architects, interior designers, historians, carpenters, costume designers, and engineers of incredible patience and imagination.
Each time I go, I discover new & deeper layers of detail. This was particularly true when Neighbor Roy & I recently photographed several of the models. I could see even more detail through my macro lens. Here are some of the images we created along with some historical background.
(FYI: click on any of the images to enlarge.)
Automated Public House (size: about 18? long)
Toward the end of his life, Emil Wick created five masterpiece mechanical houses, one each for his five godchildren. Each was unique and is today an extraordinary living document of early 19th century European village life. This three-story wooden house or hotel, typical of Basel, Switzerland in the early 1800s is populated with mechanical figures animated by a key-wound and weight driven mechanism. Inside the cabinet base is a music cylinder that chimes two different tunes.
The inner workings of this house are a web of string, pulleys, wires, and cams set in motion by the descent of a carefully balanced weight. Winding a key inserted into the front of the miniature raises the weight, which also spins a music box cylinder hidden in the cabinet below.
Despite their jumbled appearance, Wick’s mechanics yield surprisingly sophisticated animation. There are over 30 different movements, some of them remarkably complex. The dancers on the upper balcony, for example, don’t just spin randomly, but pause and pirouette in step with a stately waltz. Wick modeled all his figures on people he actually knew, perhaps using his skill as a portrait photographer to capture their personalities in miniature.
Nuremberg Kitchen (size: slightly less than 1?cube)
From the seventeenth century until well into the twentieth century the most popular toy room was the kitchen. Especially popular in Germany, toy kitchens resembling the real kitchens in South Germany were known as the “Nuremberg” style. The typical Nuremberg kitchen has a central cooking area with overhead flue, rows of shelves for displaying plates and a checked pattern floor as well as poultry pen. This 18th century Nuremberg kitchen includes an early ceramic stove with unusual design that sits against the back wall with a built-in chimney. It duplicates a kitchen in an early Georg Bestelmeier Catalog. Nuremberg merchant Georg Bestelmeier listed in his 1798 catalogue over 8,000 toys and educational materials including fully furnished doll’s houses and kitchens.
Japanese Family Farmhouse (size: slightly larger than a 1’ cube)
Shoichi Uchiyami is a Japanese miniaturist committed to recapturing the buildings and countryside of Japan’s historic villages. Although they have survived through many generations, most have given way to modernity and disappeared in the last thirty years.
Created by Uchiyama in 1992, this miniature is a re-creation “of a traditional wood and thatch farmhouse, an architectural style known in Japan as minka. This particular type of farmhouse could be found in an area 200 miles north of Tokyo, where very large farms were common; typically accommodating multiple generations of one family under one roof— and the roofs of these houses are remarkable. The thatched roof, called kusabuki in Japanese, is primarily constructed of tightly packed reeds, or ashi. These traditional thatched roofs were capable of keeping rain and snow at bay, as well as regulating the temperature inside the home year-round. The roof also provided a natural air-filtration process. In his article “Saving Traditional Japanese Farmhouses, or In Praise of Thatched Roofs,” Harris Salat writes that “in these traditional farmhouses, cooking was originally done in an irori, a charcoal-fired hearth. The roof absorbed the gases from these fires like a giant sponge, filtering them to the outside and keeping the air in the house clean.”
Lillian Watchtel, is an editor for Miniature Collector. The above quote is from her article “The Nostalgic World of Shoichi Uchiyama.”
To view our brief video of The Mini-Time Machine, go to SouthernArizonaGuide.com > Home > Our Videos.
Mini Time Machine, Museum of Miniatures
4455 East Camp Lowell Dr.
Tucson
To learn about more worthwhile museums in Tucson, whether art or other, see our list of the Best Museums here.
This article has been KID APPROVED. For more interesting ideas of Things to do with kids, some of the not very expensive, please see our page, “Things to do in Tucson with KIDS“
