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Mini World Lyon
Out and about
A day with
A day with a miniature set designer
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Susie Waroude
The miniature set designer Maxime Sellem is passionate about his job at Mini World Lyon.
Maxime became fascinated with the world of miniature models at a very young age: “my parents had a model shop on Place Saint-Nizier in Lyon.” He was obsessed with radio-controlled aircraft and decided he would make a career of it: “I’ve always loved building models. After training as a landscape designer, I specialised at a design school.”
In 2014, he joined Mini World and has been recreating “imaginary worlds” there ever since, including countryside, town and mountain scenes. For the model of Lyon, a huge project, it took him 50,000 hours of work to complete the 35,000 characters and the thousand buildings in the scene, including iconic landmarks like the Tour Part-Dieu skyscraper, the Hôtel-Dieu building, Fourvière Basilica and the City Hall. This building was “particularly complex to reproduce, with all the details of the roofs and interiors. I really love modelling famous buildings and, who knows, maybe one day I’ll get around to the Chrysler Building?”
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Susie Waroude
Each miniature work is built using the same process: “the plans and drawings are done on a computer, then the cutting is done by laser. Everything is made in 2D. The assembly and gluing phases enable us to go into 3D and recreate a living scene. The set design and lighting produce the sense of wonder…
I love putting movement into the models, through the choice of vehicles, characters and vegetation, as in the new exhibition dedicated to Jurassic World, where I created a lush jungle.”
His future plans?
His future plans include models of cult films, series and video games for Mini World Lyon and there is also talk of opening a Mini World London…
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