In these baffling times, the only way to gain control of our environment is to miniaturise it.
By Simon Garfield
A few months ago, with very little fanfare, a small new town opened to the public about 25 miles from the centre of London. The place provided an encouraging spurt of economic growth for the area, and it was swiftly populated by a thriving local community unhindered, it seemed, by social and political divisiveness. Unusually for a new town, the buildings lacked any sense of architectural unity: an art deco vacuum-cleaner factory stood near to an 18th-century French-style town hall, while the new train station had a 1930s modernist look. Elsewhere, traditional business was booming, and there was little evidence of the destructive creep of the digital economy. The butcher was doing good trade, as was the greengrocer, and the people walking around the shops didn’t appear to be addicted to their phones. It looked like a model village – not least because it was a model village. Modern happiness such as this comes at a price, and a scale. In this case, the scale is usually 1:12 or 1:18, and the price £11 for adults and £6.60 for children.
The buildings are a new addition to Bekonscot Model Village in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, which next year celebrates its 90th birthday. Many visitors come for the sense of order and control the model village brings to a chaotic life: the schools are decent, the church is full, and the blaze that regularly engulfs a thatched roof in the middle of town is always dealt with swiftly by the fire brigade. In a way that is both wonderful and unnerving, everything appears to be happening at the very moment we arrive. We are just in time for the chimpanzee’s tea party; the cricket match on the green is only now reaching its nail-biting climax. And we are powerless to resist the terrible puns on the shop fronts: Chris P Lettis the greengrocer, Sam and Ella the butcher, Ann Ecdote the bookshop.
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Source: Gaurdian
