Germany: South America Flair in Hamburg – Miniatur Wunderland Opens New Rio Area
© Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
Today, the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg has opened the first area, “Rio de Janeiro“, in its new building section Speicherblock L. For Miniatur Wunderland co-founder Frederik Braun, the new area just marks the beginning: “We spent four years building this fantastic little section under adverse conditions. But for us, it doesn‘t feel like we‘re done now, but rather like things are just getting started. With the additional 3,000 square meters, we now have room to let off steam creatively for at least ten years and build many more fantastic worlds.“
The two storage buildings of the Wunderland were connected via a bridge – this is now the setting for the special exhibition “The World from Above“, which guests can enjoy while crossing to the other side. “It‘s been over a decade since we first talked to HHLA about our expansion dreams. This gave rise to the crazy idea of the bridge that would take small trains and people across the canal into a new world. The fact that this vision has now become reality still feels quite unreal to me and is simply wonderful,“ explains Gerrit Braun.
During the four years of development, the model builders of Wunderland worked together with the Martinez model building family from Argentina to create the Brazilian city at the Copa Cabana in miniature. “We met the Martinez family four years ago in New York, and moments later the crazy idea of building South America together with South Americans in part in South America was born. Kindred spirits seem to exist, as a similar loving, nerdy, crazy and very dedicated way of thinking and working connected us from the first moment on and never faded over the course of the last four years. It was a great adventure, not the least due to the Covid pandemic. But when you stand in front of Rio now, you immediately realize that this co-production has created something fantastically unique – a truly new world,“ describes Frederik Braun. A total of around 60,000 working hours and almost 1.5 million euros were invested in the 46-square-metre-large area. In 2022, further areas of the new building will be accessible for visitors – a small cinema and a small restaurant are planned as well as the VR experience “Yullbe“, which the Wunderland is realising together with Mack NeXT (cf. EAP news 7 May 2021). In the development of the South America area, the Patagonia and arctica sections will follow in 2022/2023, the Amazon rainforest and the Andes in 2024 and the Caribbean in 2025. (eap)
