Restaurant Dubrovnik & Dancing de Olifant
A photo of the whole model during a trial placement on the club layout. The course of the road neads to be adjusted.
Short history
Photo from an unknown year. Judging by the weeds the pavilion has been out of use for some time.
Another building for the Twentse Modelspoorwegclub: the largest model made by me up till now. It concerns Balkanrestaurant Dubrovnik in the pavilion, and discotheque de Olifant (the Elephant) in the higher part of the building; both around 1975.
The building was constructed in 1969, to replace the Wiener Café on Toekomststraat, that had burned down in February 1968. According to the drawings the doubel story part should house a 'western saloon'. But according to photos from the early 1970 the big doors behind the pavilion also show the name Wiener Café. Maybe the saloon was only located on the top floor, with it's own entrance at the very back of the building.
The restaurant pavilion burned down again in 1982 and was not rebuild. The discotheque had a large number of different names over the years: aftet the Western Saloon e.g. dancing de Molen (the Winbdmill), Scaramouche, Zodiac, Club California and Ohio. But it only became nationally famous after 1992, as gay discotheque 't Bölke. The owners of 't Bölke enlarged the complex with a sauna, build on the foundations of the burned down restaurant.
Demolition of 't Bölke, October 2023.
Inside the Balkan speciality restaurant is busy too. The interieor by the way has been made up; we could not find any interior photo.
Yet ANOTHER operator in the building, with yet ANOTHER brewery contract. So the neon lighting on the roof needs to be replaced too.
Specifications of the model:
- width ca. 55 cm; depth varying from 28 cm (left) to 13 cm (terrace right); maximum height 12 cm (excl. neon lights);
- walls: cardboard with painted sanding paper and printed bricks; window and doorframes and neon lights Hengelo beer: printed PLA; roofs: sanding paper with ballast on cardboard
- lighting with 14 SMD leds, all individuallt addressable via the MobaLedLib-system.
Model
Via the municipal archives we could get hodl of a complete set of building drawings. (For which we are very gratefull!)
Hence building the model was much easier that without those. The model again is the proven combination of Forex, cardboard and home printed elements.
Photo of the model from about the same viewpoint as the photo on the top left. Only the terrace is now fully in use.
The model stands prominently at the front of the club layout. And the restaurant consists mostly of "glass". That made it even more necessary to also build an interior. The restaurant and terrace are quite crowded. No less than 75 figurines have been placed in the model.
In the kitchen the cook is being busy preparing the meals. At the same moment the galley boy puts the waste into the container at the back door.
This model also has the MobaLedLib system built in for the light effects. But a discotheque also needs music of course. So a small mp3-speler has been placed inside the model, and the frequency of the disco light was adjusted to teh beat of the music.
Video of the light effects and music in the model. The music also dates from 1975:
Lady Marmelade by LaBelle.
