Sofiero Castle
In june 2024 it was finally the big opening of the new permanent exhibition at Sofiero castle. The castle is located by the sea in the south of Sweden. It is famous for it´s beautiful garden with thousands of rhododendrons flowering in spring and is really worth a visit.
For the exhibition I had the great pleasure of building four rooms in 1:12, depicting how the castle looked in the 60s, when it was the summer residens for the Swedish king and queen.
It was so much fun making the rooms and I hope that the visitors of the museum will enjoy the exhibition for a long time. I have always loved miniature sets myself, and I remember as a child visiting the library here in Gothenburg, where they had some wonderful dioramas on display depicting a swedish childrens book. How I could immerse myself in those dioramas! And that thought was with me when I made the rooms, that if I could evoke that sensation in the visitors, especially the children, I would be truly happy.
The building process
The rooms that I was to build was the kings dressing room, the kitchen, the dining room and the adjutants room. There were some pictures of the room of various quality, but with som research I could get an idea of what I was aiming for. There is lot of furniture to buy in 1:12, but on a closer look they didn´t really match the style of the castle in that period so I decided to build most of it myself. In order to get it more accurate, but also because it is more fun and the handmade feeling adds character to the rooms.
I learned a lot when buildning the rooms and that there are many things to consider when working with small scale objects. It was such a rewarding process and to be honest, i was obsessed and for three months all that occupied my thoughts was tiny furniture and props.
To make the furniture and the props I used all kinds of materials. Most of the furniture was made of wood, apart from the stove wich is made out of paper and glue. For the kitchen I used poplar wood boards, because I wanted a fine grain so that it looked like pine in a smaller format. I also got an opportunity to use the little piece of beautiful 60 year old mahogany that I had saved for some project. It became chairs for the adjutants room. By far the most complicated piece is the sofa in the adjutants room. It consists of 14 different pieces that all had to be covered in upholstery and glued together. As I could not find a suitable cloth for the upholstery and curtains I designed two patterns and had them printed on lightweight bamboo.
Below som images from the construction process.
The result
It took a lot longer than I anticipated to get the rooms ready with the paint, wallpaper and carpets. The doors were all old fashioned and made of many tiny pieces, as were the windows. And to get the curtains in place took a lot of testing to find a working method. The furniture are build with various methods and I got to lathe, veneer and do some tiny carpentry. Many times I wished a hand another set of hands, much smaller hands.
The exhibition was produced by Kistone, who has made several beautiful exhibitions for museums and amusement parks.
Below are som images of the furniture and when it is all set in the exhibition.
