BRIAN CZAJA’S MINIATURE DREAM HOUSES Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Mini-house by Brian Czaja (31" long, 10 1/2" high)

My friend Caroline Hatton, a children’s writer and frequent contributor to this blog, met architect Brian Czaja at the 2025 Seattle Miniature Show, where she kept coming back to his display to see the mini houses he had made. All the photos in this post are courtesy of Brian Czaja.

As a lifelong fan of miniatures, I was in heaven last March at the 2025 Seattle Miniature Show. Dozens of exhibitors displayed and sold minis: finished houses, kits, building materials, tools... real-life tools (such as scissors) and mini tools (such as scissors only half an inch or 1.5 cm long), mini furniture, appliances, pots and pans, potted plants, pies and pudding, mini grab-and-go sushi deli boxes with a plastic-wrapped fortune cookie smaller than my smallest fingernail clipping...

House 1 living room.

House 1 bedroom.

My absolute favorites were the miniature contemporary homes designed, built, and furnished by Brian Czaja. Alas, visitors were not allowed to take photos in the exhibitors hall. Fortunately, Brian agreed to help me put together this blog post, so that you too can enjoy seeing his works of art.  

The three photos above show his House number 1. it is 31" (roughly 79 cm) long and 10 1/2 (roughtly 27 cm) high. The size of House 1 is 1:24 scale (one twenty-fourth of real-life size, which minieatureists also call 1/2" scale because 1 foot in real life becomes 1/2" in miniature.)  

At the show, my guess that he is a retired architect was correct! He went to Syracuse University School of Architecture in New York state, then studied and taught at the University of Bristol in England. He had his own practice in Buffalo, New York, for almost 30 years, worked for other firms in Phoenix, Arizona, for almost 20 years, then in northern California, and now lives in Salem, Oregon.

I asked him why he makes mini houses. “To keep active thinking and doing what I’ve done for a very long time,” he said. “It’s fun to design and build.” His mini houses reflect the way he has always designed, especially as a believer in simplicity.

House 2 design.

Brian begins the process with an idea and imaginary site—on a hill, by the ocean, in a meadow. He develops the idea in his sketch books until he is satisfied with what he has designed. His requirements are simple for all his designs—a house for two artists. Once the idea and design are set, he starts developing “construction drawings.” These can be quite detailed depending on the design. “Just like in the real world, you have to know how it’s going to be built.”

House 2 construction.

Once the construction drawings are finished, Brian orders materials and begins building, using his preferred woods: basswood, cherry, and red oak—only three kinds, to keep the inventory under control in his mini lumber yard. He makes all his houses from scratch, using no laser cutters or purchased windows and doors.

House 2.

When the house is done, he starts on the interior. He designs it (furniture, planters, etc.) at the same time as the house, but doesn’t make it until the last step.

House 3.

The above photo is a view of House 3 from across the pond, with the living and dining areas on the right end. The size of Houses 2-5 is 1:48 scale (one forty-eighth of real-life size, which miniaturists also call 1/4" scale because 1 foot in real life is represented by 1/4" in miniature.) 

House 3 living and dining areas.

The height of a real chair is 18" (or roughly 46 cm) to the top of the cushion. The chair height in Houses 2-5 is 3/8" (or 9.5 mm) on the 1:48 scale.

The mini paintings are scale reproductions of real-life paintings… by Brian! The man needs more than one outlet for his endless creativity.

House 4 living, dining and bedroom levels.

House 4 living room.

For House 4, Brian didn’t have to imagine on what plot of land he would build it. In his travels, he happened to spot a hillside home with ocean view and couldn’t help but dream up what house he would build there instead.

House 5 main entry.

House 5 back deck.

A big difference between Brian’s mini work and his past, real-life work is that now, he is both the architect and the client, so if he has any complaints, all he has to do is talk to himself! Seriously, this dual role allows him to take liberties, such as adding or deleting rooms as he wishes. Other pleasing differences are that things like site and weather are no problem. He can make the imaginary site fit the house and he can build in his workshop even if it’s raining or snowing outside.

I decided to write about this because many of the miniatures I have seen, including some of the finest museum pieces with plenty of character, don’t feel unique or even distinctive, so I don’t tend to remember them specifically. In contrast, Brian’s houses struck me as memorable.

To see Brian’s houses with your own eyes, consider visiting him at the upcoming Seattle Miniature Show on March 5-9, 2026.

I can’t wait to see his new creations!

FOUR DAYS IN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK: Old and New Along the Canals

Copenhagen in Danish is Kobenhavn ("Koben Harbor")

Why Copenhagen? 1. We had never been there before. 2. We are big fans of Danish TV—Borgen, The Bridge, Seaside Hotel, The New Nurses—and 3. Copenhagen is an easy train ride to northern Germany where Art was scheduled to attend a conference in Hanover. With a nine-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Denmark, we needed a place to spend a few days to recover from jet lag before the conference started. So in early October, my husband Art and I spent four days in Copenhagen, Denmark--visiting museums, eating delicious food, immersing ourselves in Danish culture.

Drawbridge tower on the Knippel Bridge and
our hotel, the NH Collection, a modern glass structure at the side of the canal.

On our first morning, after a lavish breakfast at our hotel--eggs, meat, cheese, fruit and, of course, Danish pastries--we set out, crossing the Knippel Bridge into the center of the city. I had not previously realized that Copenhagen is a city of canals, much like Amsterdam, crisscrossed by bridges and waterways. 

Glass topped canal tour boat, Copenhagen

Tour boats circle through the canals and this seemed like a good way to get an overview of the city; so we bought tickets and joined the crowd waiting to board the next boat. The tour was narrated in English, which turns out to be the universal language in Denmark, since few people outside of Denmark speak Danish.

Colorful Nyhavn

The boat made two stops during the one-hour tour, one of them in Nyhavn, with its colorful houses, once filled with rowdy sailors, now with tourists and canal-side restaurants. 

National Library, its windows reflecting the water and  a passing ferry.

Among the other sites we saw in the course of our boat tour were: the Queen’s residence; the Opera House (where we were told a diving competition is held once a year from its roof overhanging the canal); the Little Mermaid (less impressive than in pictures); rows of old warehouses, now turned into expensive apartments; the National Library (known as the Black Diamond because of the way light from the water sparkles off the dark glass). Later that day we visited the library, taking an elevator to the top to view the canal from the inside.

Display of the Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates.

In the center of the city, two long streets lined with shops are dedicated to pedestrians. While shopping was not our goal, we were drawn into the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain shop, where we discovered a display of the classic Danish Christmas plates. We have three (from 1967, 1970 and 1972)—they hang in our kitchen at home—given to us by Art’s aunt, Carolyn T. Arnold, who collected them on her trips around the world. (Portions of Aunt Carolyn's travel memoir have appeared on this blog.)

View from the top of the Round Tower, with the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden in the distance.

Also in the city center is the Round Tower, where from the top one gets a 360 view of the city--a sea of tile-topped roofs punctuated by skinny, church steeples. Tourists walk to the top of the tower, but King Frederick famously rode his horse up the ramp.

Danish Design Museum. Model of collapseable housing for use in emergency centers. Exhibits at the museum include both state-of-the-art products made with new materials as well as historic examples of fabrics, furniture, and so on.

Over the next three days we visited several museums, including the Danish Design Museum; the old Natural History Museum, which was featuring an exhibit of Neanderthal discoveries; the Palm House and Butterfly House at the Botanical Garden; and the National Historical Museum, with exhibits beginning with prehistory and progressing to Vikings and beyond. 

Meteorite in courtyard of Natural History Museum. Inside was a Neanderthal Exhibit

At all of the museums, helpful explanatory labels were in both Danish and English.

At the Butterfly House in the Botanical Garden.

We devoted a whole day to the Louisiana Modern Art museum, a forty-minute train ride north of Copenhagen—worth its own blogpost.  It, like all of the museums, has a nice cafe—the perfect stop for lunch or afternoon coffee.

Walkway along the canal. Copenhagen is a mix of old and new.

Copenhagen is a very walkable city. By law, all the canals must have pedestrian walkways along the side and streets through the neighborhoods generally have little traffic. However, as a pedestrian, one has to watch out for both bicycles and cars. Bicycles are a preferred mode of transport and get a separate lane on main roadways.

As a major port in the North Sea, boats and shipping are at the center of Copenhagen's history.

We dressed in layers for the cool fall weather and always carried an umbrella for the occasional shower. But overall, the weather was perfect for exploring the city. 

King Frederick on his horse.

We didn't see everything on our visit to Copenhagen (for instance, Tivoli, the famous amusement park, was closed for the season) but we got a good taste of Danish culture. At the end of our four days we knew a lot more about Denmark than before and had significantly reduced our jet lag. 

Inside the dome of the Marble Church.

 

 

 

FASHION AS ART: Guo Pei Couture Dresses at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA

 

Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA

The Guo Pei fashion/art show at the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco is amazing--more like sculpture and costumes than real clothes. And it is not just the clothes--it is the shoes, hats, hair, jewelry--all designed to go together. Part of the show is downstairs in the special exhibition gallery. Upstairs the models are placed next to pieces in the permanent collection. 

Painting by Peter Paul Rubens. Portrait of Rogier Clarisse, ca. 1621

The figures are very cleverly positioned --like a model wearing a dress with a ruffled skirt next to a 17th century portrait of a man with a ruffed collar, or a patterned dress placed in front of a tapestry. One of my favorites is a figure with a large helmet shaped headpiece standing under a large domed ceiling—like a pair of nesting eggs.

Ensemble (dress and hood) from the Legends collection, Spring/Summer 2017. Silk embroidered with synthetic fiber, embellished with synthetic opals and Swarovski crystals and rhinestones.

The Guo Pei exhibit opened in April and has been extended to November 27, 2022, due to popular demand. For more information and to reserve tickets, go to the Legion of Honor website.

Each room in the exhibition gallery is devoted to a particular collection, each with a theme. The exhibit in the opening room, called “Inheritance” displays two traditional embroidered Chinese robes and explains how opulent embroidery, inspired by this ancient art, is a signature of Guo Pei’s work.
(Throughout the exhibit information panels, in both English and Chinese, provide information about the dresses and about where they fit in Guo Pei’s career.)

As a young girl growing up during the Cultural Revolution, Guo Pei found solace and inspiration in her maternal grandmother whose stories of elaborately embroidered robes enthralled the future couturier. As a young designer working for brand-name companies, Guo Pei longed to design embroidered clothing. However, richly embellished clothing, forbidden during the Cultural Revolution, had not yet regained popularity as fashionable dress.

Today, Guo Pei’s studio employs 450 craftspeople, of which 300 are embroiderers. Guo Pei and her team have developed their own interpretation of traditional needlework, creating a style that combines techniques from Chinese embroidery with Indian, Russian, and European stitches.(Notes from an exhibition panel.)

Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy celebrates the extraordinary designs of Guo Pei—hailed as China's first couturier—and includes more than 80 works from the past two decades highlighting her most important collections shown on Beijing and Paris runways.

The dresses in the exhibit range from elegant to whimsical to bizarre to almost impossible to wear. (You can go online to view fashion shows of Guo Pei’s designs, with models actually walking down the runway.)

This gown is a puppet theater, complete with puppet dolls dangling on strings! A monkey puppeteer on the bodice controls the dolls with a string.

Each Guo Pei dress is unique.   

The skirt on this dress, made of metal strips, weighs 20 pounds and is attached to a belt that sits on the model's hips.

It was impossible to resist taking photos. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Playful birds perch on this model's pigtails. Collection: Alternate Universe, Fall/Winter 2019-2020.

This model appears ready to take flight.

Like a giant wearable playing card, this elaborate dress features a long train. Collection: Himalaya, Spring/Summer 2020.

In her Fall/Winter 2019-2020 collection, Alternate Universe, Guo Pei envisioned an afterlife in which animals preside over humanity.

It is hard to believe that one could walk in these shoes.

The dress, made of pleated silk and embroidered with 24-karat gold metallic threads, is from the Collection of the Dragon, 2012.

These dresses are inspired by the typical blue and white designs on traditional Chinese ceramics.

“The culture of China is just like the blood that runs through my veins, it’s my life…China has more than 5,000 years of history, even longer culturally speaking. That history has greatly enriched my designs and is essentially a foundation of my work.” Guo Pei