The last module, Module 7, is the extension of the river and “only” 70x80 cm big . It will aslso neighbour the module with the parc. I want to build one house near the river banks, some vegetation, a couple of figures and that would be it then.
The river has already be done during last year as I wanted to use up most of my resin, so this leaves me with the one structure to build. But what a build!
The "Villa Prüm" is called after the owner and is a massive construction whose look has changed a few times during the early last century and was expanded ever more. I am joking already that the architect of this house should have immediately been fired. Convince yourself:
Here is a view from far to get you an idea where to place it in the town of Clervaux. It is the massive whitish house on the right side of the river Clervaux! If you continue your look along the river it will lead you to the bridge, 2 cm above the house on the picture. That’s the bridge I build already.
Here is a few of the front right after the war, it was partly destroyed
Fortunately, the house is still standing today and i got the possibility to do some close up shots. The vegetation around the house is so dense that I returned in winter once more to get some more shots without disturbing leaves.
The front today
On the back of the house
and finally this one! Look at the roof work!
I have about 100 pictures to cover every angle I could see and am right now again, for the third time, trying to figure out how to build this Villa. I am sketching every angle of it (there are more extras in the house then those I showed you) and try to place all those towers and dormers and terraces, chapels and whatever else is in there at the right place. For some areas I am also using other old reference pictures, mainly to get the right proportions and heights of the decorative roofwork.
The Villa is right in the middle of the old postcard
Here is a sketch I made to clarify what could b the most complicated part of the build, also the part where I have no clear picture, only little indications here and there. Believe me, I spend a lot of hours to get an idea of this construction
But there is more. Strictly taken the Villa should be 77 cm big in 1/35 ! I only have 80 cm on the module. I certainly don't want it look cramped between the river bank and the module's border, so I need to shrink it somewhat to a size of about 60 cm. This will of course lead to some problems as you can shrink some areas without incidence to the look, but not others. Finding the right balance so that the building will have the feel of the original in the end will be very interesting .
First thing to do was to build a cardboard mock up to verify the most rough measures
I made more already but am not really taking a lot of pictures on this one. The construction is routine once the measures are defined, all other reasoning’s are very complicated to tell on a message board. I will try regular updates nonetheless. I am estimating a three months build time as the slate tiling will be complicated because of the small dormers and pointed towers. Also my working room is right now at only 12 °C, so great dedication is needed to spend hours there.
Why did I choose to build this monster? How about looking for a challenge? :-)
Stay tuned
Claude
