July 04, 2010

Jean-Claude Marchi, Village miniature Ponte Nuovo / Mini village Ponte Nuovo

all pictures (2008) courtesy of Alain Muller (Flickr)

In 1997 Jean-Claude Marchi, who was born in the mid 1940s, just for his fun, made a miniature Corsican house, using little stones he came along when making a walk in the environment. 

He was (maybe still is) a cheese maker and he had no creative ambitions,. When in 2002 he made his first little house, he probably had no idea that this leisure pastime would result in a complete miniature Corsican village.


His creation, situated in the garden of his house in the small community of Carriolu in Corsica, can be seen from the road that runs along the garden.

The miniature village is kind of a replica of the small community of Rostinu, that in former times was located in these surroundings.



In the close vicinity of the miniature village, the main road RN 193 passes the Ponte Nuovo, a bridge over the Golo river.

In Corsica this is historical area. At this spot, in May 1769, Corsican combatants, fighting for independence, were defeated by the French army of king Louis XV.

The Ponte Nuovo is represented in the miniature village (very first picture).



Jean-Claude Marchi made this mini village just by intuition. without any prior plan. A small house would take him a week to construct, larger and more complex buildings would take him a month.

In the article published in Corse Matin (see below) it is reported that Marchi in 2022 was still active in caring for his creation.

Documentation
* Entry on website Atlas Obscura
* Article (July 2022) in journal Corse Matin

Videos
* Video by Pacapub (YouTube, 4'04", uploaded October 2009)


* Video by Martine Felix (2014, YouTube, 2'37")


Jean-Claude Marchi
Village miniature Ponte Nuovo
Carriolu, Corsica, France
can be seen from the road
streetview

4 comments:

  1. ok, what is it about these Corsicans and miniature villages ? Are there others besides these first two you've shown us ? What a huge number of stones it must take to do this !

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  2. Hi Owen, so far I did not trace any other miniature village ceative construct in Corsica. For a long time I knew about the one in Bastia, but I had no idea I would come along the other two. Surprise....and now for the theorists to explain why Corsica has so many of these mini structures, in comparison with other areas.
    Maybe it's the abundance of small stones.
    Anyone for another option?

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  3. Maybe it was a poetic and unconscient attempt on rebuilding the world from its founds, on a controled way, and look for that what went wrong, and for that what could be better, or an attempt on feeling some control of the world surrounding them, at least only the buildings, and without the remorseful of playing with human lives.

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  4. From Alberto Oliver
    Maybe it was a poetic and unconscient attempt on rebuilding the world from its founds, on a controled way, and look for that what went wrong, and for that what could be better, or an attempt on feeling some control of the world surrounding them, at least only the buildings, and without the remorseful of playing with human lives.
    (Thanks Alberto Oliver, had to copy/paste this comment because of some technical problems)

    ReplyDelete