Look into a miniature city one sculptor built over 35 years
1:6 scale, 3,000 square feet
A one-sixth-scale city of dozens of buildings and hundreds of figures, filling a 3,000 square foot room, made by a single sculptor over 35 years.
Why it's unique
Magic Town is a 3,000 square foot city at one-sixth scale, with dozens of buildings and hundreds of hand-made figures, built by the sculptor Michael Garman from 1975 until his death in 2021. It is not a model railway diorama or a dolls' house collection; it is one artist's single continuous work over 35 years.
It is built as sculptural theatre rather than as a display. Mirrors open into side alleys that do not exist, holograms put figures into rooms, and trick lighting means a scene you have already looked at has changed when you come back to it. The subject is the neighbourhoods Garman lived in while hitchhiking around America, so the mood is deliberately grim rather than nostalgic.
Before you go
Look into the buildings, not at them. The whole design rewards putting your eye close to a window: the mirrors open views into alleys, and the lighting cycles so a room changes between one look and the next. People who walk round the perimeter once and leave have missed it.
Garman modelled it on Dallas, San Francisco and Philadelphia as he knew them while drifting, and it is populated by the people he met there. He died in 2021, so the work is finished by circumstance rather than by intention.