Museum in Czech Republic

[Mike Stamper]

I mentioned in my earlier thread that I had bought a couple of new kits by Minibox. Here is the second kit. It is quite different from any of the other minibox, except it's in 1:300 scale and is a giant by comparison. The base is a majestic 10 1/2 inches wide, 7 inches deep and a towering 4 1/2 inches tall.

The building is The Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Kralove. I'm sure most of you know the town but if not, it's almost due east of Prague, quite near Pardubic, home to one of the best Castles and the kit of the same name. I'm no expert, but it looks as if the building is in the early Art Nouveau style.

So, back to the kit. It comes in the form of an A4 book with instructions only in Czech and with pages of pictures of the build process - the only problem is that parts are printed on the reverse. I worried for ages about the build process, until I translated one word near the beginning of the instructions - yellow!

This reminded me of the building style of many czech kits from the "big" publishers. The process involves different sections having the part numbers in circles of different colours. From then on it was just a matter of going from one yellow number to the next using the pictures as confirmation of my progress. Other colours were for the base and grounds and the fountain

The kit is well within the high standards of the other Minibox kits and only a little bit more challenging that their other kits, mainly due to the more involved structure of the building. The flat dome on the top was the most challenging part with about 40 "petals" to be folded - a flat version of the dome is provided for those of a careful disposition;-)

It's a good kit of an unusual building and because of that, I'm not sure that many kits will sell outside the Czech Republic - although I hope I am mistaken.

Cheers
Mike

[missileer]

Really nice model. With the amount of detail, my guess would have been 1/87 scale. That is a lot of detail for so small a model. I think you are right on the style; that building would have fit in anywhere in the western world in the 1930s. Thanks for sharing.

John

[Monika Jantar]

lovely design.