A Magical Wonderland, in Exquisite, Tiny Detail
HAMBURG, Germany — We had an all-encompassing view of Rio de Janeiro and its surroundings: Sugarloaf Mountain, the Christ the Redeemer statue, Copacabana Beach. Architectural novelties like the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum and the Metropolitan Cathedral stood out among the sea of buildings, as trains and streetcars passed by, and thousands of dancers swayed and strutted during the city’s Carnival celebration.
Yet Rio was more than 10,000 kilometers away, while my husband, son and I stood in a building in the Speicherstadt, the historic warehouse district in Hamburg.
The scene we admired is one of more than a dozen sprawling exhibits at Miniatur Wunderland, home to the world’s largest model railway and largest miniature airport. The meticulous replica of Rio opened as Wunderland’s newest exhibit in December 2021, built over four years in partnership with a family-owned model-making company out of Argentina.
“Mind-blowing,” my husband said several times during our five hours of marveling at reproductions of Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, the United States and other sites, complete with tiny, hand-painted figures participating in the myriad activities of daily life. Through all of the landscapes, trains chugged along 16,138 meters of track.
The project started in 2000 when the twin brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun, then 32, dreamed of creating the largest model railroad in the world. The siblings, who grew up as train enthusiasts, wound up running a Hamburg nightclub and record label in the 1990s, but eventually they wanted a lifestyle change. With help from friends and family, the Brauns opened Miniatur Wunderland’s life-size doors in 2001.
In the years since, the attraction has drawn more than 21 million visitors from around the world, becoming one of Germany’s top tourist draws. Yet in some places, Miniatur Wunderland is primarily known among railroad fans and other hobbyists.
Count us lucky to have a son, now 15, who has been obsessed with anything that moves mechanically since he was old enough to point. We didn’t anticipate our own enchantment with this tiny world, full of painstaking detail and technological wizardry, sure, but also bursting with whimsy and humor.
Take the diorama of Italy, for instance. Among the faithful reproductions of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum and Mount Vesuvius (complete with regular eruptions), there are little moving vignettes, activated by pressing a button. In one, Pinocchio’s nose grows 15 centimeters across the room of a tiny cottage. Elsewhere, a small Michelangelo bounces on a trampoline to reach the Sistine Chapel ceiling with his paintbrush.
As we moved about, we appreciated that the landscapes were anything but static. In addition to the trains, cars and boats that travel about (in the Scandinavia section, ships navigate tides in real water), most of the figures, a few centimeters high, are doing something.
Thomas Cerny, a spokesman for Miniatur Wunderland, said, “As time went on, the model railway became less important, and the storytelling and the creativity became much more important.”
On the fourth floor, we passed by the central command for all of the exhibits, filled with large screens and electronics. It was like an open kitchen. Not only do the systems that control the trains, vehicles and lighting originate here, but video cameras let staffers monitor things like train derailments and other glitches that can occur with so many moving parts.
We discovered that it is not always sunny in Miniatur Wunderland, either. Every 12 minutes, the exhibits shift from day to a three-minute-long night, and the real rooms darken as almost half a million LED lights twinkle in the dioramas.
“The model builders are what make the whole exhibition special,” Mr. Cerny said. “If you know them, you can even tell who built what, as each one has their own sense of humor.”