that is in the 1950s/60s,
making models from plastic kits was all the rage, boats, planes, cars, houses and trains all made at the time by 2 main players in the UK boys shop market, Airfix and Revell, there were hundreds of kit makers, but these are the two I remember buying most, times have of course changed, I now read that a Japanese city just West of Tokyo is
responsible for 80% of the plastic model market, Shizuoka
City, home to toy model makers like Bandai and Tamiya, prides itself as being
the plastic model capital of the world,
inspired by
these plastic models, or puramo, the city recently launched an
initiative to install puramonuments around the city that
range from signage to functional post boxes, that I have to say remind me so much of the kits that I played with,
the design
for the new monuments was inspired specifically by the assembly kits that came
in grids of interconnecting plastic rods that had to be clipped to free the
individual pieces,
so
far the city has installed three puramonuments: a post box in front of city
hall, and two signages, one in front of Shizuoka Station and the other outside
the Twin Messe event venue where the Shizuoka Hobby Show is held
each year in May, one city making 80% of the plastic model market, amazing!
No comments:
Post a Comment