Mini Architects: 20 Projects Inspired by the Great Architects

by Jos phine Seblon, Robert Sae-Heng (Illustrator)

Overview

Mini Architects harnesses the enduring fascination young children have with building to introduce them to architecture and structures from around the world.

Featuring twenty creative and easy-to-achieve art projects inspired by famous buildings and architectural wonders, this book is designed to help
parents, guardians, and teachers to be creative with kids.

Designed to engage young children with architecture through creative art projects, Mini Architects takes inspiration from some of the most famous architectural wonders of the past and present, including the ancient Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, and Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse.

Mini architects can choose from a variety of easy-to-make projects using simple materials and featuring a range of interesting techniques, ideal for teaching new motor skills. Step-by-step photographs and clear instructions are easy to follow for both children and adults, and each project requires minimal setup and cleanup, to ensure the maximum amount of time is spent creating together.

Each project is accompanied by photographic reproductions of the famous buildings that inspired them, along with fun facts and questions about the structures and their architects, designed to familiarize young children with this creative world and encourage discussion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500660249
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	10/15/2024
Series:	Mini Artists , #2
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Joséphine Seblon studied art history at the École du Louvre and now works in publishing in London. She cocurated VIEW, a festival of art history at the Institut Français in London. Through her Instagram @weareminiartists, she shares the creative fun she has with her two young children, learning about and making art.

Robert Sae-Heng is an illustrator and artist with a BA in illustration from the University for the Creative Arts, Southeast England. He is the illustrator of the Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park's The One Thing You'd Save.

Editorial Reviews

2024-08-03
Crafts projects made from simple materials echo aspects of iconic structures from Stonehenge and the Sagrada Família to a Zen garden.

Confusingly switching from addressing children in some passages to adult caregivers in others, Seblon opens each entry with a description of the chosen structure alongside a not-always-helpfully angled photo. She adds several discussion questions, then goes on to pair terse instructions with photos or diagrams of the neatly assembled project at successive stages. The “little hands” (as she puts it) that are visible in some pictures will generally need help from adult hands to finish most of these projects—the rounded river pebbles prescribed for Stonehenge, for example, will be hard to balance atop one another, and the cardboard walls for the “Tower block box” inspired by Le Corbusier’s brutalist Cité Radieuse (“Radiant City”) will require more than the suggested safety scissors. Several will also require waiting for paint, glue, or papier-mâché to dry partway through before they can be finished off. Still, even if many of the completed models don’t resemble the buildings that supposedly inspired them, they will require enough effort to satisfy hands-on builders, and more than a few could potentially exhibit spectacular forms and colors. The skin hues of photographed hands and Sae-Heng’s small figures of painted children are diverse.

Uneven but worthwhile. (list of buildings)(Nonfiction. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews