The Wonder of The Thorne Miniature Rooms

The Thorne Miniature Rooms at Chicago's Art Institute are a collection of sixty-eight handcrafted dioramas created in the nineteen-thirties by artist Narcissa Niblack Thorne and her team of artisans. Each room is built to one-to-twelve scale—roughly the size of a shoebox—and features miniature furnishings reflecting the design trends of different eras and places. Per NPR's coverage, the rooms remain one of the museum's most popular galleries, a point of pride for Chicagoans and a cherished memory for many who first discovered them as children, peering through the gallery's display windows.

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