The White House in Miniature - Hardcover

Gail Buckland; John Zweifel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393036634 ISBN 13: 9780393036633

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994

Synopsis

John and Jan Zweifel's meticulous recreation of the White House is captured in full-color illustration.

Considered to be one of the world's greatest miniature houses, the replica is the result of over 30 years of research and construction by the Zweifel family. The tiny, working telephones, hand-carved chairs and tables, and miniature carpets that reproduce the original stitch by stitch, are all proof of great craftsmanship and minute attention to detail.

About this title

About the Author:

Gail Buckland, is an associate professor at The Cooper Union in New York.

From Kirkus Reviews:

No doubt about it--this book, which presents (with infinite care) the miniature White House constructed by John and Jan Zweifel (with more than infinite care), is astonishing. The miniature White House, built on a one-foot-to-one-inch scale, is beyond astonishing, replicating each room of the real White House down to floral arrangements, dining services, and, when possible, hand carvings on table legs. Kathleen Culbert-Aguilar's photographs (accompanied by Cooper Union professor Buckland's text) seem designed to accomplish two things: first, to allow us access to places, like the Reagans' bedroom, not included in the normal White House tour; second, to make us wonder at the craftsmanship of the replica. This she does by means of clever interventions like putting a real poker hand (a full house) in the model Green Room. The persistence of the Zweifels, who first got the Kennedy administration interested in the project but weren't allowed into the White House to take the necessary measurements and pictures until the Ford administration (Gerald Ford and his wife contribute the foreword), is boggling. But isn't this fetishistic reverence for executive wallpaper also a bit perverse? What does it mean that we want to banish the presidency to Lilliput? And how come there aren't any toilets? -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0393036634
• ISBN 13: 9780393036633
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 204