Some years ago I was asked by director Niki Padidar to make a miniature of the house of her grandparents in Teheran. The maquette would play a role in her documentary film “All You See”, which is about how people see you when you are new somewhere and what this alienation does with you. She also included her own experiences from 1986, when she left Iran with her parents as a 7-year old girl.

Niki visited my home in Utrecht with a few old family photos, which showed the house of her grandparents. The house itself does not exist anymore. Gradually more photos and even films emerged through her family in Teheran and America. We were able to make an as authentic reconstruction to scale as possible because of her fond memories of the house in question.

"All You See" will premiere as the opening film of The International Documentary Film Amsterdam (IDFA) in Carré Amsterdam on 9 November 2022.

The house was fully clad with marble sheets and had large windows with coloured stained glass in the round top side. Pien managed to create hundreds of different pieces of marble with Photoshop and print them custom made. I had to cut them out and stick them on the maquette one by one in the same pattern as can be seen on the photos. The stained glass is more visible with lighting in the miniature. Our son Ivo therefore built a system with various electronics components that is hidden in the miniature. With a mobile phone each LED light can be turned on and off remotely per room and the light intensity can be controlled.

The facade miniature of Leliegracht 35 in Amsterdam almost faithfully reflects the current situation of this typical Dutch architecture. Only the stairs to the cellar door have been left out and are replaced by a cellar window, with a bench in front. The house has a Dutch flag and on the street there are three characteristic Amsterdam bollards and of course a bike.

The facade was built on a scale of 1:70. All relief in the facade, for example the depths and thicknesses of the posts, frame wood and the door, also has a correct scale.

At the moment there is one miniature available (in a Rijksmuseum green display). The price is 3.500 Euro (excluding shipping costs). Send us an email

The house was fully clad with marble sheets and had large windows with coloured stained glass in the round top side. Pien managed to create hundreds of different pieces of marble with Photoshop and print them custom made. I had to cut them out and stick them on the maquette one by one in the same pattern as can be seen on the photos. The stained glass is more visible with lighting in the miniature. Our son Ivo therefore built a system with various electronics components that is hidden in the miniature. With a mobile phone each LED light can be turned on and off remotely per room and the light intensity can be controlled.