Berlin city has just got a little bigger!!!
Adacademy’s team had a fantastic opportunity to visit an exciting family attraction in Berlin, called Little BIG City.
Merlin Entertainment officially opened this incredible museum on 1st July 2017. Located in the heart of Berlin, in the base of the iconic TV Tower, the first ever Little BIG City in the world offers a unique interactive handcrafted miniature city which not only depicts the iconic buildings and streets of the city on a larger scale in a sterling details, but most importantly also utilizes some special effects and cutting-edge multimedia and computer technology combined with the creative genius of the Merlin Magic Making team to bring alive the most epic moments which shaped Berlin from the medieval to modern times. The visitors can enjoy over 6500 perfect 8 cm miniature people, each created after extensive historical research to ensure the authenticity of the time in which they are depicted in the history. The figures are 3D printed and hand finished to the finest details.
The visitors will experience a “walk through history” – the god and the bad, in a way which is more engaging and tells you more about the city than you can do in any other way. Covering seven interactive and immersive zones, some highlights include the unique chance to witness the first-hand the burning of the Reichstag and personal stories from first hand witnesses from across the divided city.
Little BIG City Berlin is the fifth Merlin attraction to open it within Berlin and follows popular visitor attractions such as Madame Tussauds, LEGOLAND Discovery Centre, SEA LIFE and The Dungeons which are already providing extremely popular with local and international visitors to the city.
Interesting facts:
Producing all 3D-Models and characters of Little BIG City Berlin took 30 months. Little BIG City’s team of 40 people included creatives, artists, painters, model makers, carpenters, mechanical engineers, and 3D Printer technicians.
For every building, they used architectural drawings, photos and Google street view to make them as realistic as possible. Using cutting edge software, everything was drawn to scale.
The buildings were crafted each part individually out of 3D printed plastics, machined acrylic, plywood and MDF, cut to a tenth of a millimeter.
For the larger buildings the team successfully utilized FFF, also known as Fused Filament Fabrication. This new process builds up thousands of layers 0.2mm at a time to create an enormous structures.
Some Stereo lithography machines are used for the finer details. This process hardened resin with a laser, allowing the creators to get much finer quality and much finer surface finish.
The model makers and carpenters then assembled all the pieces, weathering them to make them appear time worn, before handing them to the painters. They spent between 15 to 20 hours just on painting each building painting to get all the details correct!
Initiator of the new brand "Little BIG City" is the Merlin Entertainments Group. The research for all stories and the history was made in teamwork within the company.
Adacademy highly recommends to all travelers in Berlin to visit the Little BIG City. This unique, one-of-a-kind experience would make you learn more about the history of Berlin and your stay will become remarkable and memorable!!!
For checking the Little BIG City opening time, please visit their website: https://www.officiallittlebigcity.com/berlin-en/plan/#opening-times-tab
Acknowledgment: We want to express our sincere gratitude and appreciations to Ms. Anne Marczinczek, Marketing Manager of the Little BIG City Berlin for her great assistance and support to our team!
