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Kapla - the art of model behaviour
Paul R Taylor9/ 6/2005
THERE'S something very strange about men who are obsessed with
models.
Now I'm not talking about those who lust after beautiful women who
live on a diet of water and fags, most men do that, me
included.
I'm talking about the men who spend years painstakingly recreating
the Houses of Parliament or HMS Prince of Wales using only matches
and glue.
I've never been able to understand how they find the dedication to
pore over their creations, intricately building the designs piece
by tiny piece, or why they bother to do it at all.
So, with that in mind, I'm standing at the weird and wonderful
Garden of Delights festival at Platt Fields Park thinking I'm not
sure I'll enjoy the day doing just that. I am going to play
Kapla.
In the days of Playstations and X-boxes Kapla is surprisingly
creative, wholesome and simple game that is sweeping France.
The idea is to take hundreds of little pine blocks and use them to
create fantasy castles and palaces, animals, bridges and towers,
basically anything in your imagination.
It's for kids really but I suspect the parents will enjoy it just
as much without admitting it, like the ones who read Harry Potter
to their children as bedtime stories.
We walk inside the green and white tent dedicated to Kapla at the
festival and find a hidden world of domed palaces, towering castles
and giraffes.
It looks like someone has taken several boxes of Jenga bricks,
injected them with steroids and then taken some illegal substances.
There are 20,000 bricks in the tent, as many as there were people
visiting the festival during the weekend, and Kapla expert Helen
Segium has brought all of them over from Paris.
The 25-year-old works part-time in the Kapla centre in Paris as she
completes the final year of her architecture degree.
She immediately sits us down with a bag of bricks and explains how
they are used. There's not much to it really. There are three
positions for the bricks: flat, on their side, or on their
end.
My girlfriend Jade is with me and as we begin to lay out the plan
or base of our structure we're joined by nine-year-old Sebastian,
which is great because it looks like he's our child and stops the
other people in the tent trying to work out why two grown adults
are playing with 21st century Lego. He's also got cool hair, so we
even manage to look like trendy parents.
After about five minutes we've built a reasonable castle base, with
parapets, spiral staircases and windows but it pales in comparison
at the other constructions in the room. We decide a crack team of
French kids must have built the other structures and are now hiding
behind the tent but Helen says people who wandered in have built
them that weekend.
Slightly deterred we press on and I find an hour flies by as we
work together to create the castle.
Sebastian has a steady hand, but he needs to stand on a chair as we
begin to construct the dome and I realise I'm becoming both proud
and protective of our castle; like one of those competitive dads,
who sets up his son's train set, won't let him have a go and by the
end of the day plans to covert the loft.
But it's not Sebastian I'm worried about. He is concentrating on
the task in hand and clearly enjoying himself. It's the other
little terrors running around the tent, weaving in and out of the
unsupported brick buildings like drunken ballerinas.
One of them reminds me of Nelson in the Simpsons, and I imagine him
turning around with an "aaah haaa" as he crashes into our castle
and ruins all our hard work. I console myself with the thought that
a judge, given a couple of hours with some Kapla bricks, would
probably give me quite a lenient sentence if this happens.
The actual process of building is pretty easy but is also quite
therapeutic. By the time the impressive dome - which rivals the one
in Florence - is built we've probably been working away for an hour
and a half. I haven't noticed the time pass.
We're joined by Sebastian's dad for the final stages and them
working together shows that Kapla is an excellent way to enjoy some
time with your children without having to master the intricacies of
the Playstation controller.
When the castle is finally completed we all stand back to admire
our work. It's now a rival for the other structures, bigger and
more detailed than most, although the dome is a tad squiffy. Not on
my side though.
There's scores of activities to keep the kids occupied at the
festival including performance artists, space hoppers, food and
music. By the lake you can model your very own terracotta solider,
and then fire it so that it can take its place in the 10,000 strong
terracotta army - a contemporary version of the one discovered in
the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in China.
There's a competition to build the tallest Kapla tower at 6pm and
as the tent fills up with kids and their parents we decide to check
out the rest of the festival.
We say our goodbyes and leave the tent but as we walk away I hear
the clatter of wooden bricks and a big cheer, followed by an "aaah
haaa". I don't look back.
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