Abstract
This article analyzes religion in the miniature parks of Madurodam in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Miniatürk in Istanbul, Turkey. I argue that miniature parks can be productively analyzed as sites that express how audiences are supposed to feel about religion, heritage and national identity. The article discusses how these parks reflect social dynamics with regard to religion and secularity. It concludes that theme parks such as Madurodam and Miniatürk are suitable sites for sustained ethnographic explorations of the ‘imagineering’ of religion in secular societies. In an epilogue, it discusses how miniature parks increasingly deploy new forms of immersive media like 4d cinema, augmented reality installations and 3-d printers to stage the parks’ claims regarding culture and the nation in new ways.
1 Introduction
Wandering through Madurodam, the most famous miniature park in the Netherlands, visitors can walk from Schiphol airport to the cathedral of Den Bosch and from the dikes of Zeeland to the railway station at Groningen, all in a few steps. Scattered among these scaled-down landmarks are tiny vehicles, trees and people engaged in mundane activities: we can see tiny figures cycling on their way to work, waving to each other from across the street or about to catch a bus. Everything is in the scale of 1:25, which provides visitors with the feeling of being comically oversized amidst a miniaturized world.
At the same time, miniature parks like Madurodam are not only about fun. Madurodam, like most miniature parks, combines fun with education. As illustrated by its slogan, ‘Experience Everything That Makes a Small Nation Grand!’, it aims to convey an overview of the nation’s landmarks. Foreign tourists wishing to immerse themselves in the culture of the country can see its highlights in an afternoon. Dutch school children get to know the major architectural, cultural highlights during a single school trip. Miniature parks are not just tourist attractions, they are also framing devices where claims about heritage and identity are materialized. This, in short, makes miniature parks interesting objects of study.
In this article, I will analyze two miniature parks, Madurodam and Miniatürk. Both parks are popular tourist destinations, but they are also icons of national identity and reference points in debates about heritage, the nation and political change. I outline how these parks reflect twenty-first century dynamics with regard to religion. Both parks are located in nominally secular societies that have experienced considerable religious-cultural turmoil in the twenty-first century. Both parks, I argue, provide and deploy ways of sensitizing audiences to issues relating to religious diversity and national identity. I conclude by recommending that theme parks such as Madurodam and Miniatürk are suitable sites for sustained ethnographic explorations of what I propose to call the ‘imagineering’ of religion in secular societies. In an epilogue I outline how miniature parks increasingly deploy new forms of immersive media like 4d cinema, augmented reality installations and 3-d printers to stage the parks’ claims regarding culture and the nation in new ways. But first, let me sketch how miniature parks became popular vehicles for national nostalgia.
2 Miniature Parks and Nostalgia
The International Association of Miniature Parks (IAMP) lists fifteen parks as its founding members (IAMP 2003). These include Madurodam (the Netherlands), Mini Israel, Italia en Miniatura, Mini Europe, France Miniature, Swiss Miniatur and Miniatürk. The list also includes the oldest miniature park: Bekonscot Model Village & Railway.
Bekonscot proudly presents itself as ‘the world’s oldest original model village’ (Bekonscot 1972). This claim depends, of course, on the definition one uses. Naturally, miniaturization was not invented by Bekonscot. Miniaturization has featured in such varied domains as military planning, architecture, funerary rites, toys and religious education for millennia.1 For the purposes of this paper, however, I will leave this deeper history of miniaturization aside in order to focus on the rise of the miniature park as a modern theme park, a site in which miniaturization is used as an immersive form of leisure and tourism in a presentation that ‘often represents a nation as a condensate of popular monuments’ (Freitag et. al. 2023, 348). I therefore start my discussion of miniature parks with Bekonscot, which is said to be the first miniature park.
The roots of Bekonscot lie in the hobby of one Roland Callingham, who had an increasing fondness for miniature railways. This hobby grew somewhat out of hand, to the extent that his miniature railway became too large to fit indoors. The official documentation published by Bekonscot recounts: ‘In 1928, Mrs Callingham made a short but moving speech which suggested that either the indoor model railway went, or she did. The model railway moved outdoors’ (ibid.). Initially, a plot of land was used to display the railway for the Callinghams and their guests. But, as the miniature railway became a miniature village, it attracted more and more people and quickly became a popular attraction. As the years passed, the miniature village increased in size, was continuously updated, and steadily grew in popularity and number of visitors. With its iconic English cottages and landmarks, its figures frozen in ordinary postures and activities, Bekonscot became known for invoking a nostalgic experience of what was perceived as stereotypically English. The brochure for Bekonscot boasts that the park is a ‘little piece of history that is forever England’ (cited in Padan 2017: 37). It promises to transport its visitors into a nostalgic time warp: ‘see England how it used to be and discover a wonderful little world tucked away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life’ (Bekonscot 1972). Bekonscot remains a well-known attraction, drawing in millions of visitors.
Besides being a popular tourist attraction, Bekonscot is also a charity with a public mission. The park is managed by the Roland Callingham Foundation, which describes itself in the register of charities as follows:
The charity owns and operates the Bekonscot Model Village, created by the late Roland Callingham in 1929 and located in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. As well as preserving this heritage and educating visitors on life in communities since the 1930s, the charity gives grants to other charities, specifically those that advance religion and are local to Buckinghamshire.
Charity Commission 2023
Figure 1
Promotional postcard commemorating Princess Elizabeth’s 1936 visit to Bekonscot Model Village
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Beaconsfield Historical Society. Copyright permissions: The image is in the Public Domain, seeBekonscot combines a sense of fun and wonder with nostalgia and, in doing so, presents itself not only as entertainment, but as meaningful entertainment. It aims not just to be a place of leisure, but also of pedagogy, charity and heritage preservation with a particular emphasis on religion.
Bekonscot inspired miniature parks around the globe. It exemplifies a number of elements that would become characteristic of miniature parks elsewhere: miniature parks are places of fun and childlike wonder, but also of meaningful entertainment. The charm of a miniaturized world is combined with an immersive and nostalgic celebration of the nation. The miniature parks that are inspired by Bekonscot share this combination of entertainment and pedagogy.
One of the slogans used by Madurodam, for instance, reads: ‘Experience everything that makes this small nation grand!’ (Madurodam 2024). Upon its launch in 2003, Miniatürk, a park devoted to miniatures of Turkish and Ottoman heritage, promised to make ‘people, children and young adults fall in love with this empire and its imperialistic wealth.’ (Bozkuş 2013: 56) Showing that modelscapes can instill patriotism for more than one nation, Mini-Europe attempts to invoke a sense of pride in European identity and cultural accomplishments, ‘featuring all the wonders of Europe in miniature!’ (Mini Europe 2024), This list could be expanded with Splendid China, Mini Israel and other miniature parks across the globe, but for the purposes of this article, let me summarize that miniature parks tend to combine the charm of miniaturization with the aim of fostering an interest in national culture and identity. This makes miniature parks highly ideological places in which popular culture, nationalism and claims about the material bearers of identity meet. This also explains why religion features so heavily in miniature parks.
3 Heritagized Religion in Miniature Parks
Miniature parks generally include models of big, well-known landmarks and architectural highlights like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or the Atomium in Brussels. Of course, these highlights also include monumental religious buildings. The best known and most iconic churches, cathedrals, mosques and synagogues are represented, like the Notre Dame in France Miniature, de Nieuwe Kerk in Madurodam, and Hagia Sophia in Miniatürk. But many lesser known religious buildings are also present. Madurodam, for instance, features dozens of smaller, lesser known churches and monasteries next to the most famous landmarks. Miniatürk in Istanbul not only shows the best known mosques, it takes care to include an overview of what are presented as the major periods and regions of the Ottoman Empire. The result is the pronounced visiblity of religious buildings in these parks. When one walks through Madurodam, Miniatürk, Mini-Switzerland or any of the other parks, a collage of spires, towers and church buildings make up miniature skylines of religion.
Figure 2
Collage of spires in the miniature park Mini Mundi (Middelburg, the Netherlands). The image shows seven church buildings
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorAlmost without exception, these miniature religious skylines depict the majority religion. Most of the parks reference some form of religious diversity, but only minimally. The 37 religious buildings of the 117 miniature monuments in France Miniature are all Christian. Madurodam features dozens of churches and monasteries, with virtually no presence of other religions, except for a model of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam. Miniatürk is an exception. Although its main focus is on the mosques, madrassas and minarets of Ottoman and Islamic heritage, it seemingly pays more attention than most other parks to religious diversity (we will have more occasion below to discuss how religious diversity is present in Miniatürk and what it says about its presentation of the Ottoman empire and present-day Turkey).
A second defining feature of religion in miniature parks is that the parks display old religion. Virtually all religious buildings in the miniature parks of the IAMP were constructed before 1900.2 This can be explained by seeing how the parks’ mission statements situate religion in their mission to present the heritage of the nation. Above, I showed how Bekonscot presents itself as a charity aimed at promoting heritage and religion. Analogously, France Miniature describes its mission statement as follows:
Discover the wonders of the French historical and cultural heritage, through our park with miniature reproductions. Take a tour of France in one day and enjoy the views of our most famous monuments for their exceptional architecture: Paris and Versailles miniature, Sacre-Coeur, Notre-Dame Cathedral and many other churches and cathedrals.
France Miniature 2024
Analogously, Miniatürk presents its miniatures, including its many miniature mosques, as part of its mission to display the heritage of the Turkish nation,
bringing together the rich architectural heritage of (…) Rome, Byzantine, and the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires, Miniatürk has become a showcase of Türkiye, with the Slogan of ‘A Small Model of a Big Country’. (…) Miniatürk is a pleasant park, as well as a cultural and social responsibility project at the same time. Young generations will discover the deep roots of their civilizations in Miniatürk.
Miniatürk 2024
Miniature parks tend to include religion as part of their mission to represent the heritage of the nation in an accessible, enjoyable manner. The inclusion of religion in a theme park might be construed as being at odds with any serious conceptualization of religion. It is still not uncommon to see the verb ‘themeparkization’ used in a derogatory sense. Theme parks are often seen as places of superficial leisure, as a herald of the arrival of superficial popular culture. If and when religion appears in theme parks, a tempting reaction would be to interpret this as the victory of a secular culture of leisure (cf. Paine 2020). In what follows, I will argue that sites like Madurodam and Miniatürk, although they are places of leisure, should also be read as sites that use miniaturization to immerse their spectators in complex interactions of religion, heritage and national identity. This can best be explained by connecting the parks to recent academic debates about religion, heritage and secularization.
4 Heritagization and Secularization
As anyone who has visited a monumental church, mosque or temple as a tourist can attest, heritagization might certainly amount to a form of secularization: what was once primarily a religious site is now also a destination for other audiences, organizations and registers (cf. van den Hemel et al. 2022). The tourist who has bought a ticket to stare admiringly at the majestic ceiling of, say, the Hagia Sophia might acknowledge an uncomfortable contrast between the tourists and those who use the building as a religious site.
At the same time, heritagization is more than an encroachment of secularity in sacred space. It might well be that recognizing heritage is experienced as a welcome recognition of a religious group’s value in society, it might be a worthwhile recognition that helps maintain religious monuments, or it might offer a valuable way for a religious community to maintain and study its own past (cf. Salemink 2016). Heritage and religion are not only clashing registers, they can also complement or amplify each other. Moreover, heritagization is itself informed by religious registers in more ways than one. Astor, Burchardt and Griera have highlighted how the heritagization of religion is connected not so much with eroding religion’s privileges, but rather with a form safeguarding and continuing them without seemingly ‘violating core tenets of secularism or pluralism’ (Astor et al. 2017: 126). Heritage involves setting up communities of care that conserve objects that are set apart as being of special value for communities. In this way, heritagization can be said to be itself a process and continuation of sacralization (cf. Meyer and de Witte 2013). In many contexts across the globe (including virtually all Western European countries) religious heritage became a central category in identity formation (Roy 2014). In secular countries, references to heritagized religion are used in polarized debates to demarcate who belongs to the majority culture and who does not. For instance, terms like ‘Judeo-Christian heritage’ are used to differentiate between white European populations and Islamic ‘others’ (van den Hemel 2014). Elsewhere, colleagues and I have argued that, in such polarized climates, heritage functions as a ‘secular sacred’: ‘a person, object, image, representation, or place in which secular and sacred ideas, feelings, emotions, motivations, experiences, perceptions, intertwine, conflate and conflict’ (Balkenhol, van den Hemel and Stengs 2020).
Such recent scholarly work aims to improve understanding the roles heritage and religion play in demarcating feelings and practices of belonging in contemporary societies. Analysis of the media involved in processes of heritagization can further aid this understanding. Through what means are audiences sensitized to experience religion-as-heritage? How are objects from the past made into icons of majority identification? What work do mediatized environments and the devices deployed in them, like exhibitions, plaques, landscaping and tours, do in evoking emotions?
An analysis of miniature parks contributes to these matters in multiple ways. Firstly, Miniature parks provide an overview of heritage. Miniature parks quite literally curate a specific view of heritage for their audiences. Audiences are meant to be charmed by their immersion into the miniaturized world. As such, they invite (or, to phrase it more accurately, they playfully force) audiences to assume a bird’s-eye point of view of the nation and its heritage. The accuracy and charm of the miniatures obscure from view the fact that the miniature park is an imaginative and creative collage. For instance, because the buildings are miniaturized and duplicated, they can be arranged freely, with few practical limitations. Miniature religious buildings are not houses of prayer themselves, they are miniaturized replicas. This means that the miniatures can be more freely handled than the originals. For instance, many of the challenges that arise out of heritagized religion that were mentioned above, like how to negotiate the multiple uses of a religious building, do not apply: miniature mosques are not used for prayer, and miniature cathedrals are not consecrated. Miniature churches or mosques are quite literally arranged in a collage and narrative that expresses what audiences are supposed to feel about the material bearers of collective identity. This makes the parks suitable for analysis of how ‘heritage regimes’ (Bendix et al. 2012) appeal to the senses through the engineering of immersive experiences.
Secondly, miniature parks are dynamic agents of heritagization. It is not uncommon for newspapers to present the unveiling of a new model in a miniature park as an event worthy of media attention. When a certain model is removed from the miniature park, it is not uncommon for popular protests to occur, or for crowdfunding campaigns to be launched to sponsor the renovation of the miniatures. The heritage status of a particular object is affirmed, re-interpreted and sometimes contested when it is taken up in a miniature park. When a model is included in miniature parks of something that is deemed not worthy of inclusion, emotions of outrage or concern might burst out. When Madurodam announced it would include an oil rig in the park, environmental activists protested that this was an undesirable heritagization of pollution. Mini-Israel became the site of contestation when visitors threw stones at the miniatures of Muslim prayers at the miniature of the Dome of the Rock (Feige 2017).
In short, miniature parks are both expressions and agents of heritage regimes. The parks provide an entrée into some of the mechanics and material practices involved in staging heritagized religion in contemporary societies. In what follows, I will illustrate this by focusing on two miniature parks, Madurodam and Miniatürk, to show how their models reflect larger issues relating to religion and heritage.
5 The Missing Mosque of Madurodam
Madurodam was founded in 1952, being named after the Dutch cavalry officer George Maduro (1916–1945). Maduro was born into a Jewish family on the island of Curaçao, a colony of the Netherlands at the time. During the Second World War, he distinguished himself in combat, was arrested and died a prisoner of war in 1945. After the war, Maduro’s parents wished to create a monument to commemorate their son and to honor his sacrifice during the war. Inspired by Bekonscot, its efficacy in instilling pride in national identity and its way of generating income for charity, the decision was made to construct a miniature park. Madurodam is meant to entertain, but also to commemorate war, instill patriotic pride, and raise funds for charity.
To this day, these aspects can be seen in the present-day park. Upon entering, visitors can watch a short movie in which Maduro’s life and death are depicted on an immense curved screen (to maximize immersion). The film ends with the following quote that describes Maduro’s motives during the war: ‘there was one thing that made his dark eyes shine: the dream of liberation, when he, on horseback, would greet his queen at her triumphant re-entrance.’ Whether these were really Maduro’s motives (and why it is of importance to highlight that his eyes were dark) is not the topic of the present essay. Instead I want to stress that the Second World War functions as a moral, national force in Madurodam, further illustrating its role as not just a place of leisure, but also of social engagement.
This is further illustrated by the mission statement of the park’s management. The park is run by a conglomerate of a commercial company (Madurodam BV) and multiple foundations and holdings, including the ‘Madurodam Foundation’, a charity. Its goals are described as follows:
Madurodam is more than a theme park. We are also a war monument, established as a living tribute to war hero George Maduro. But did you know that since our opening in 1952, we donate our proceeds to charitable causes? Annually, we contribute between 600,000 and 700,000 euros to projects and activities for children and young people, with the aim of connecting them with others, engaging in meaningful conversations, listening to each other, and doing something for others to make society a bit more beautiful together.
Madurodam 2024
Madurodam organizes an annual commemoration of the casualties of war for children (‘kinderdodenherdenking’). During this commemoration, children learn the importance of remembering that ‘people fought for their freedom.’ This explains the somewhat peculiar slogan that Madurodam uses to this day: ‘Madurodam, perhaps the world’s most cheerful war monument!’ (Madurodam: Misschien wel s’werelds vrolijkste oorlogsmonument).
Most visitors, however, do not know Madurodam as a war monument. Madurodam is mostly known for its miniatures of Dutch culture. As visitors walk around the landscaped park, 370 models of representative buildings provide an overview of Dutch architecture, commerce, culture and religion. Plaques accompanying the models explain the history and significance of the originals. Audiotours and maps are available that contextualize the models as visitors make their way through the park. The park is designed in the shape of two concentric circles. The outer circle, the periphery of the park, features models of recent architecture. Here the models mostly depict commerce (including Rotterdam port, Schiphol airport, the offices of a major Dutch bank), culture (concert hall, football stadium, carnival rides), and public works (the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, the Delta Works (a storm-surge barrier), which, as a plaque reminds us, exemplifies Dutch ingenuity and its perpetual struggle against the water).
In the inner circle, the centre of the park, lies the historical section. Here, the majority of miniatures are copies of buildings built in the seventeenth century, the Dutch Golden Age. The Amsterdam canals are present, as is the historical city centre of Delft and the seventeenth-century streets of Gouda. Religion is prominently represented in this section, including dozens of churches, multiple monasteries, abbeys and one synagogue (the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam). The newly renovated model of Sint-Janskathedraal of Den Bosch has an interactive element to it. Pressing a button sets a procession in motion.
Scattered between the historical and contemporary buildings are miniature people walking miniature dogs or driving miniature cars. The little figures next to churches, including cars and contemporary technology, strengthen the feeling that the historical church buildings are the historical backdrop to everyday Dutch public life. All in all, looking over the park from the outer circle towards the centre, Madurodam suggests that the Netherlands is at its historical core a Christian nation. The park can be read as a temporal collage of Dutch history: moving from the periphery to the centre, the visitor moves from the secular present, exemplified by the models of recent architecture and public works, into the historical and religious centre of Dutch society. Madurodam is a spatial imagination of the history of the Netherlands, in which heritagized religion lies at the historical centre of prosperous and technologically advanced present-day Dutch society.
Figure 3
Model of Saint Johns Cathedral (Sint Janskathedraal), in Madurodam
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorNaturally, this obscures quite some important aspects of its history. There are, for instance, no references to Dutch colonialism in the park. The sole exception is a single model of the birthplace of George Maduro in Willemstad, on the island of Curaçao, officially part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In general, the image of the Dutch past that is presented is emptied of any problematic aspects. For instance, the park offers a route that follows replicas of 17th-century heritage which it advertises as follows:
Travel back to the 17th century; walk the route through the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands with the themes of trade, science, architecture, and arts. Follow this tour and experience and discover what made the Netherlands great!
There is no reference here to the fact that slavery and colonial expropriation were large parts of trade, nor to how the rise of science, architecture and arts in the seventeenth century can be directly tied to such colonial endeavours.
This fits in with what I outlined above: miniature parks are, generally speaking, no place for complex interactions with the past. Miniature parks are, after all, theme parks, and theme parks are in the business of selling good times. The parks tell a positive story about the societies they depict, celebrating their accomplishments and obscuring the less cheerful circumstances of those accomplishments from view. Similarly, its treatment of religion as a historical centre of secular Dutch society works because it leaves out those elements of religion that do not fit this narrative. Although Madurodam includes many Catholic churches and cathedrals, there is no mention of the fact that Catholicism was banned for centuries in the Netherlands. As I will show in more detail below, similar dimensions arise when we zoom in on the question of why there is no mosque in Madurodam.
Madurodam, like every theme park, is continuously being updated and renovated. As the park is a nationally known icon, it also finds itself taken up in debates about the dynamics of national identity. With the rise of radical right-wing conservatism in the twenty-first century and its emphasis on Islam as inherently alien to Dutch ‘Judeo-Christian culture’ (van den Hemel 2014), it became a recurring matter of debate whether Madurodam should or should not include a mosque in its collection (Knippenberg et al. 2020). It would be a good sign, the director of Madurodam stated, to include a mosque in the park (Volkskrant 2003). Yet when a miniature mosque was offered to Madurodam, things quickly became complex.
The Mubarak Mosque community of The Hague3 offered the professionally made model to Madurodam. As the director of Madurodam has declared in subsequent interviews, the miniature mosque was deemed to be part of Dutch cultural history, and the miniature was deemed professional enough to meet Madurodam’s standards (ND 2017). Yet, obstacles arose that prevented the inclusion of a mosque in Madurodam. It was claimed to ‘scare away potential visitors’ (cited in Knippenberg 2017: 26). Also, the park’s management expressed a fear of angering Muslims: ‘we don’t want to anger Muslims by including a certain style of mosque while not including others’ (ibid.). Multiple efforts were made to convince Madurodam’s management to include the mosque, while others protested at this inclusion of Islam in this miniaturized overview of Dutch society. In interviews in no less than three national newspapers, the director clarified the park’s decision. He stated that Madurodam should reflect the Netherlands in all its aspects, and he acknowledged that indeed Islam is ‘simply a part of the Netherlands.’ The director promised it would be only a matter of time before Madurodam would have its mosque: ‘a mosque will be placed in Madurodam’ (‘die moskee, die komt er’) (Volkskrant 2003). In order to prevent unwanted escalation, however, Madurodam assembled a committee (‘toetsingscommissie’) which was tasked with researching the subject further. The committee was given the following task:
What currents and groups of Muslims actually exist in the Netherlands? As many Muslims as possible should be able to recognize themselves in the mosque—or possibly multiple mosques—and as few as possible should feel excluded. The next step is to establish contact with people who have expertise so that we can ultimately make well-founded decisions.
ND 2003
What happened to this committee and its task is unknown. We do know that at the time of writing in 2024, no mosque is present in Madurodam. The whereabouts of the model of the Mobarak Mosque that was offered to the park twenty years ago are unknown, and there is no known current initiative to include a mosque in Madurodam.
Summing up, the image of Dutch society as presented in Madurodam prioritizes the Christian past and downplays the role of other religions. It depicts present-day Dutch society as secular, yet as arising out of its Christian past. Attempts to diversify this image of Dutch society have resulted in public outcry and bureaucratic red tape. In short, the image of the Netherlands presented in Madurodam is predicated on the active curation of those elements that keep this narrative in place and on the creative obscuring of those elements that do not fit the narrative. Madurodam’s presentation of religion is not merely a symptom of secularization, but rather a complex process which prioritizes Christianity as a feel-good majority heritage and obscures historical and present-day religious diversity and strife.
6 Miniatürk: ‘A Small Model of a Big Country’
Miniatürk first opened its gates in 2003. This miniature park in Istanbul was directly inspired by Madurodam. It exhibits miniature models of primarily Ottoman and Turkish heritage. It features the major mosques of Istanbul, including the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, but it also includes lesser-known landmarks from across Turkey and various other parts of what once was the Ottoman Empire. For instance, Miniatürk also includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Mostar Bridge in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Analogous to Madurodam, Miniatürk aims to offer an overview of national heritage by combining the entertaining appeal of the miniature with the aim of providing a meaningful narrative. And like Madurodam, Miniatürk prioritizes the majority religion: the park features dozens of mosques, minarets and madrassas, and Islam is presented as a core component of Ottoman heritage.
The backdrop to the design and construction of the park in the early twenty-first century is formed by profound changes in Turkish society, specifically with regard to the role of Islam and the Ottoman past. Miniatürk aims to connect present-day Turkey with its Ottoman and pre-Ottoman roots. Scholars have described the process taking place in Turkey as ‘Neo-Ottomanism’ (Yavuz 2020). In his Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism, M. Hakan Yavuz defines Neo-Ottomanism as ‘an emotional, nostalgic identity in which Islamic and Ottoman history are (…) linked to national dignity’ (xii). These links between Ottoman history and national dignity are tangible in the park. In her article ‘Modelling Citizenship in Miniatürk’, Ipek Türeli outlines how the park is part of a profound reorientation of Turkish history in which Republican versions of history are replaced with narratives that prefer Ottomanism (Türeli 2006). This can be seen in Miniatürk through its downplaying of secular Republican heritage and its emphasis on Islamic monuments from the Ottoman era:
The inclusion of monuments from ‘Ottoman geography’ outside Turkey suggests that the park extends the imagination of the nation state beyond the current borders and claims the Ottoman Empire as historical precedent and cultural heritage, and this reflects the current government’s (nostalgic) desire to extend Turkey’s sphere of influence to that territory once more.
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Figure 4
Model of Blue Mosque in Miniatürk. The Bosphorus Bridge can be seen in the background
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorThe intended effect of the miniature park is to kindle an interest in and admiration for the Ottoman Empire, which in turn is connected to complex debates concerning Turkish national identity at the present day. The following quote from the press release around the time of the opening of Miniatürk in Istanbul illustrates its aims: ‘It is impossible not to congratulate this cultural and visual project that introduces and makes people, children and young adults fall in love with this empire and its imperialistic wealth’ (Bozkuş 2013: 56).
Türeli also highlights how the inclusion of non-Muslim Ottoman-era monuments bolsters the claim that the Ottoman Empire was an enlightened, multicultural empire: ‘One of the forms of neo-Ottomanist nostalgia that manifests itself is a longing for the multi-congregational and multilingual composition [of the Empire] with its Christians, Jews and Europeans’ (116). Indeed, in contrast with Madurodam, Miniatürk does seem to present more religious diversity. Multiple churches, monasteries, synagogues and temples are present in the park. However, when we zoom in, we find a specific imagination of historical religious diversity, and a very limited presence of present-day religious diversity. What is presented as a celebration of religious diversity should be read as a selective collage and instrumentalization of the past that materializes an ideological vision of the Ottoman Empire and its relevance for today.
Most of the non-Islamic religious buildings in Miniatürk date from pre-Islamic times. This includes pagan religious buildings, like the Altar of Zeus (constructed between 197 and 159 BCE), and the Temple of Artemis (334 BC). It also includes pre-Islamic Christian buildings like the Trabzon Sümela Monastery (385 AD) and multiple Byzantine churches, including Hagia Sophia. Moreover, almost all of the non-Islamic religious buildings in Miniatürk are no longer in present-day use. This is the case for the pagan, Roman and Hittite temples. Of the six churches represented in Miniatürk, four were converted into mosques, and one became a concert hall. The only exceptions are Saint Antoine’s Church and the Ahrida Synogague in Istanbul, both of which are still in use. Religious diversity, in so far as it is present in Miniatürk, is mostly presented as historical religious diversity. Ottoman history, it seems, is predominantly Islamic history, and non-Islamic minorities in the Ottoman Empire and present-day Turkey are almost fully absent. Any religious, ethnic or other strife is obscured behind the image of an enlightened, multi-cultural Ottoman Empire.
Partly, this can be explained by the history of the Ottoman Empire. Historically speaking, there was a Christian and pagan past before the Empire, and those pasts have left architectural heritage in the territory. In this sense there is a contrast with Madurodam, which presents the history of the Dutch nation as arising out of an already Christianized territory. But there are also similarities in how these parks treat the religious past: neither park engages with religious diversity as a force at play in present-day society. Instead, both miniature parks present a linear narrative in which strife and diversity are downplayed in favour of a feel-good imagination of the roots of the present-day majority culture.
We can see this as well in how Miniatürk treats the heritage of secular Republicanism. Potentially, the history of Kemal Atatürk and the Kemalist criticism of the Ottoman Empire and the public role of religion might be at odds with Miniatürk’s celebration of Ottoman and Islamic heritage. Miniatürk solves this potential tension by quite literally arranging the Republican heritage in its overview of the creative achievements of the Ottoman Empire. The birthplace of Atatürk, for instance, is located in the section of ‘overseas Ottoman territories’ and is flanked by the Mostar Bridge and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This can be seen as an interpretative choice in which Republican secular heritage, including heritage pertaining to the secular Republic’s founder, is literally situated in, and arises out of, imperial Ottoman history.
Figure 5
Plaque accompanying model of Rize Kıbledağı Prayer Hill Yusuf Hodja Mosque in Miniatürk
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorIn contrast to Madurodam, there are multiple references to present-day political developments in Turkey. Contemporary political leaders are presented as those who safeguard and re-invigorate the Ottoman heritage. This is illustrated by the miniature of the Al Qibla Mountain Mosque. The accompanying plaque reads:
The mosque, which has been worn out and ruined over time, was rebuilt with the Ottoman architecture together with the roads and surroundings under the auspices of our President Mr Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2015, and it was turned into a belief centre.
The plaque highlights that this is a model not just of a historical site, but of a renovated historical site: religious heritage saved from destruction by Turkey’s present-day leadership. Under Erdoğan’s auspices, the plaque implies, Ottoman heritage is being restored.
As the model of the Bosphorus Bridge shows, this is not the only way in which recent politics are explicitly inscribed in the park. The Bosphorus Bridge, built in 1973, was originally included in Miniatürk as a marvel of engineering with a highly symbolic value. The bridge was the first to connect Asia and Europe. It is one of the most visible models in the park. Visitors can walk across the model, and thus ‘marvel at this feat of engineering up-close’. Following the 2016 coup attempt, the bridge was renamed the July 15th Martyrs Bridge. Whereas before 2016 the plaque mentioned the architectural value of the bridge and its symbolic value in connecting Europe and Asia, the plaque now reads the following:
Figure 6
Model of July 15th Martyrs Bridge, formerly Bosphorus Bridge, Miniatürk
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorOn July 15th 2016, 248 civilians were martyred on this bridge after traitors, who were attempting a coup, opened fire upon them. The coup attempt was suppressed by the civilians, and the name of the bridge was changed to the July 15th Martyrs Bridge in memory of the people who were martyred.
When one walks over the bridge in Miniatürk, visitors are no longer walking across a secular achievement, it is no longer primarily a marvel of engineering that bridges Europe and Asia. It is now framed as a site of martyrdom. Visitors are immersed in a recent historical event, imprinted with a moral message that presents the 2016 coup as the hard-fought victory of martyrs over traitors.
In summary, Miniatürk offers a model for a new form of Turkish national identity with a strong emphasis on Ottoman and Islamic heritage. At face value, Miniatürk seems to present more religious diversity compared to Madurodam. Both parks strongly emphasize a single religion, and, although they both present nations with an imperial past spanning multiple continents and centuries of conflict and strife, both parks actively imagine a peaceful continuity between present and past. Miniatürk more explicitly engages the ‘overseas territories’ of the Ottoman Empire, compared to Madurodam, which almost completely leaves out the Dutch colonial past. Yet, both parks can be said to curate history actively and selectively, and they both present a positive image of the nation by selecting some objects while excluding and obscuring others. And finally, both parks hope to instil joyful pride in their audiences by immersing them in charming miniaturized collages.
7 Conclusion: Imagineering Religion in Theme Parks
Besides being spaces of light-hearted entertainment, miniature parks such as Miniatürk and Madurodam are also places that present an emotionally appealing and uplifting representation of the nation. In doing so, elements that do not fit this celebration of the nation are left out, or actively obscured in the parks. The parks differ from each other in the way in which religious diversity is taken up in these collages. Whereas Madurodam obscures religious diversity and excludes formerly imperial territories, Miniatürk explicitly includes references to overseas territories of the Ottoman Empire and prides itself on the multicultural aspects of that Empire. But the parks share important dimensions as well: their design reflects an emphasis on majority religion as the backbone of present-day national identity. Both miniature parks aim to magnify the claims of the nation and to influence what we imagine the past and present to be. Both parks also use the immersive experience of visiting a miniature world to ‘imagineer’ narratives about the nation and its heritage.
This analysis of the two parks shows how heritagized religion can function not so much as the expression of a secularizing gaze, but of how secular societies themselves frame their present through an immersive appeal to the religious past. This analysis could be extended by a broader examination of miniature parks and power in nominally secular societies. In China, the first theme park that the Communist Party allowed to be built was entitled ‘A Splendid China’. This miniature park opened in 1989 and was inspired by Madurodam. It celebrates Chinese heritage and inscribes religion as heritage in a manner that speaks volumes about the position of religion in present-day China. Likewise, Mini-Israel, which opened in 2002, can productively be read as platform for deeply polarized struggles about what belongs to Israel’s past and what doesn’t.
In an even wider purview, miniature parks are but one form of the immersive media that are used to impact people’s sentiments with regards to religion. Miniatürk and Madurodam exemplify how, in twenty first-century secular societies, immersive media are used in attempts to engineer what we imagine religion to be. As struggles over religious diversity, cultural identity, or migration will continue in the foreseeable future, literacy concerning the use of seemingly innocuous forms of media that are used in these struggles will become increasingly important. Moreover, Miniatürk and Madurodam are examples of how identities are expressed and negotiated through material objects. Miniature parks tell stories about the material bearers of collective identity by re-arranging miniature objects in an emotionally appealing collage. Analysing such dynamics improves understanding of how religion is taken up in heritage constructions.
At the same time, the ambitions of this article were limited to convincing the reader that seemingly innocuous sites like miniature parks can and should be studied seriously. Future work will have to focus more on the lived experience of these parks. The two parks are designed to engender pride in the heritage of the Ottoman Empire or in the achievements of the Dutch nation, but how are these ambitions experienced by their audiences? What does, say, an Armenian visitor to Miniatürk experience during their visit? How do Dutch Islamic schoolchildren experience Madurodam’s vision of Dutch society? Future work will have to engage in in-depth ethnographic study of these places.4 Instead of a full ethnography, in the following epilogue, I will provide an outline of how such ethnography will have to take the different experiences of different visitors into account.
8 Epilogue: New Forms of Immersion
‘Madurodam is boring’. At least according to my daughter. I visited Madurodam only recently. My previous visit must have been during a school trip in the 1990s, when I was about eight years old or so (most Dutch school kids are bussed to Madurodam at some point). This time I visited with my eight-year-old daughter. As I was trying to snap pictures that could show the amusing effect of miniaturized buildings with full-size people next to them (which is not as easy as it seems), my daughter quickly grew bored. ‘Look!’, I tried, pointing out de Nieuwe Kerk in our hometown of Amsterdam. Unimpressed, she scanned the park for something more exciting.
On our way home, when I asked her what she had found most exciting in the park, she responded: ‘the rides!’ When I was young, Madurodam featured only miniatures. In present-day Madurodam, certain innovations have been added. Now there are not only miniatures, but also multiple immersive 4d cinema rides. For instance, we entered an immersive 4d experience that stages an event presented as ‘the birthplace of the Netherlands’: Hof van Nederland. In this installation, using a combination of animatronics, screens placed on all walls of the room and clever surround-sound design, we are told the story of the first free meeting of the Staten in Dordrecht in 1572. The declaration of rebellion against the Spanish king that was drafted during this meeting is often presented as the ‘birth of the Dutch nation’.5 This historical event marks a decisive moment in the Dutch war of independence against Spain. The story is told with plenty of pathos. As virtual musket bullets whizz around the room, a booming voice reminds us that ‘at this moment the Netherlands became the world’s first nation where you are free to believe what you want’. The installation ends with nothing less than a rousing plea: “Do you support these foundational values? Today we give you the fire of freedom!” As we exited the cinema ride, I remember feeling the urge to point out that for centuries Catholicism was more or less outlawed in the Netherlands and that a ban on Catholic processions was included in the Dutch constitution until 1983. And what to think of present-day Dutch society, in which the largest political party in parliament has attempted to outlaw the Koran? But I also remember not wanting to spoil the fun by turning our day out into a depressing lecture.
My daughter’s favourite 4d cinema attraction in Madurodam, however, is a ride called ‘The Flying Dutchman’. This ride consists of an immersive 4d projection that takes place in an old Douglas DC3 airplane. Designed to celebrate the history of ‘the brave pioneers who made the Netherlands what they are now’, the plane flies through Dutch history. The plane ‘takes off’ shaking and shuddering, while the animations on the screens that line the side of the old airplane give us the illusion of flying over the Netherlands, through its past and present into the future. As the Nieuwe Kerk of Amsterdam flashes past, it strikes me how this 4d installation resembles the miniatures of Madurodam: it immerses us in a bird’s eye view of miniaturized time and attempts to impress us with the relevance of the heritage of the Netherlands. My daughter’s appreciation seemed to centre on the experience of flying and not so much on the rousing emotional history that was told during the flight. But, nonetheless the immersion might have contributed to embedding a certain sense of history in our bodies.
Figure 7
Miniature figurine of the author and his daughter, made in Madurodam
Citation: Secular Studies 7, 2 (2025) ; 10.1163/25892525-bja10082
Photo by authorOn our way out, we passed through another modernization of the miniature. A 3d scanner can be used to scan and print oneself on the scale of 1:25. Being able to hold an image of yourself in the palm of your hand, in the same size as the miniatures of Madurodam, allows us to imagine ourselves as part of the nostalgic world of Madurodam. The result is a bit uncanny.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the editors for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this text; the participants of the workshop on ‘Material Secularities’, organized by the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe Multiple Secularities at Leipzig University in June 2023; the participants of the seminar on Religion, Body, Media and Heritage at the Meertens Institute in January 2024; Luuk Odekerken for insightful comments about the type of airplane used in Madurodam; Aysenur Korkmaz for feedback on the final version, and my nine-year old daughter Lu, whose presence and comments in the miniature parks were very helpful.
More on the fascinating history of miniaturization can be found in works by Susan Stewart (1993) and Garfield (2019).
An exception is the Chapelle de Ronchamp in France Miniature. This is the site of an 18th-century church building which was destroyed during the Second World War. After the war, Le Corbusier was tasked with designing a replacement, which was completed in 1955. An accompanying plaque situates the chapel in this longer history of religion on the site of Le Corbusier’s chapel.
Built in 1955, the Mobarak Mosque is an excellent illustration of the peculiar history of Islam in the Netherlands. When it was designed, the local authorities were worried it would not suit the neighborhood. The architect’s initial design, featuring minarets and a dome, was rejected, and he was advised to tone down the explicitly Islamic elements of the design. The architect was told to take inspiration from the way in which Catholic churches were designed during the period Catholicism was more or less outlawed in the Netherlands. As a result, the first purpose-built mosque in the Netherlands is something of a palimpsest of changing views on religion.
This article was written as part of the ERC Consolidator Grant ‘MAKEBELIEF: The Religious Politics of Theme Parks in the Twenty First Century’. During this five-year project, researchers will engage in precisely such ethnographic engagements with religion in theme parks.
See, for instance, this website, which commemorates the 450th anniversary of the year 1572:
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