Mini domm

Miniature from Ettal Abbey , around 1973.

Minidomm was a miniature park in Ratingen- Breitscheid near Düsseldorf and was considered a tourist attraction in the Rhineland that is known throughout Europe . It was right at the Breitscheid motorway junction on the A3 and A52 motorways .

history

In the 1950s, the architect Wilhelm (Will) Dommel (1914–1988) began to realize this show park of outstanding architecture. Since the park was located in a swamp , the area was filled with 14,000 truckloads of crushed stone and gravel before construction began . The park opened on April 2, 1967. At the beginning of the 1980s, his son Georg Dommel took over the management of the park, and the didactic concept gave way to an exclusively leisure-oriented one. Since the city of Ratingen did not approve the further expansion of the amusement park or further drive-in cinemas, the facility had to be closed on November 1, 1992. Most of the models were auctioned.

The Minidomm drive-in cinema was for many years the No. 1 among all German film theaters and the first drive-in cinema that was also allowed to show first performances. The site as well as the drive-in cinema , which also no longer exists , have been designated as a commercial area that is now largely built on.

On an area of ​​approx. 80,000 m² there were approx. 120 models of various buildings on a scale of 1:25 (except for the model of the port of Bremerhaven, which was on a scale of 1:50) with a total value of more than DM 35 million at the time .

Objects

The objects on display included:

• the Brandenburg Gate
• the Neuschwanstein Castle
• the Dresden Zwinger
  • 6 years of construction; Costs DM 600,000
• the Holsten Gate of Lübeck
• the Hamburg City Hall
• the Frauenkirche of Munich
• the Berlin Olympic Stadium
• the Dortmund Westfalenhalle
• the Ulm Minster
  • 7 years of construction; Costs DM 780,000
• the Bamberg Cathedral
  • 3 years construction time; Costs 250,000 DM
• the Danzig crane gate
• the Paris Eiffel Tower
• the Parisian Arc de Triomphe
• the Brussels Atomium
• the new port of Bremerhaven (the ships were pulled with underwater chains)
• the Cologne / Bonn airport , together with various aircraft models
• the Wuppertal suspension railway
• the Tower Bridge of London
• the Nuremberg Castle
• the Würzburg Residence
• the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• the “La Malagueta” bullring in Málaga
• the White House in Washington
• the Mayan pyramid in Chichen Itza , Mexico
• the Luxembourg villa Louvigny
• the Circus Krone
• the Laboe Naval Memorial
• various typical farms from all over Germany

For Minidomm still belonged Gourmet - restaurant with the hotel. There were several snack bars in the park, one was housed in the historic car 24 (rear car) of the 00 series of the Wuppertal suspension railway. The car was probably built around 1900.

Web links

• minidomm-fans.de - website about the park with the support of Georg Dommel
• Facebook page for the mini domm
• minidomm.de - website about the history of the park
• koelnarchitektur.de - Exhibition "Minidomm" from 2003

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 7 "  N , 6 ° 51 ′ 53"  E