For the past two decades, a group of residents from the town of Sæby has been busy building “Minibyen Sæby,” a 1:10 scale of their northeastern Denmark seaside home, tiny brick by tiny brick.
Formed in 2000, the volunteer organization started out meeting in the basements of the local transformer station and former waterworks department. It finally secured its longtime workshop space and display area in a field next to a local shoreline access point, where the ever-growing miniature model can be seen today.
The creators of the mini-Sæby make all the clay building blocks by hand and get them fired courtesy of a nearby brickworks factory in the village of Volstrup, about a mile from town. As they are completed, the wee houses are then situated in their proper location within the growing mini-city.
Because most of the older structures in Sæby are centuries old, the 150-plus miniatures are not based on the contemporary city but rather on how the town’s dwellings and downtown buildings looked around the year 1900. And so far, a few major landmarks stand tall in the tiny town. The miniature church was completed in 2009, and a replica Sæbygaard, a historic local manor house, was finished in 2016.
The gates to Minibyen Sæby are open several weekday mornings. It costs 25 kroner for adults to enter; kids are free. During daylight hours, you can easily look at the whole mini-town through the chainlink fence that surrounds it for no cost at all.
Britta Shoot
