House of MinaLima is staying open in London, following popular demand from Harry Potter fans.
The exhibition space opened last summer and was originally envisioned as a pop-up shop.
Graphic designers Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima launched the space to showcase their work on the Harry Potter films and beyond, with each floor designed to be an immersive wizarding experience for the visitor.
Now thousands of fans from all over the world have visited House of MinaLima eager to explore the building’s four storeys, all full to the brim with their Harry Potter designs.
Pottermore caught up with Miraphora to talk about the response so far, and the House of MinaLima’s future.
‘Every day I just marvel at the response,’ Miraphora said. ‘At least 200,000 people have been in here. Now the building’s a tired old lady! We didn’t really know when we started off as a pop-up, but then it kind of became obvious that [the fans] didn’t want us to go. It was very sweet. There was a guerrilla petition in our visitors’ book to say “do not close”.’
House of MinaLima is stuffed with unique and detailed pieces of art that, at some point or another, have turned up in the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them films, and now the shop is here to stay.
Miraphora is now keen to revitalise parts of the House, and give their visitors something new.
‘Probably what we’ll do is have one of the floors as a rotating exhibit,’ she teased. ‘But I guess you could say, seeing people’s social posts, it’s inspired us to want to make more opportunities for people with their faces, not just their feet on our Marauder’s Map floor.’
Above all, the shop constantly adds more artwork from their contributions to the wizarding world. The most recent addition represents a rather cute moment from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
‘We didn’t know when we were doing the exhibition originally which bits of Fantastic Beasts would be featured, and it turned out there was a lovely shot of Jacob, bewildered sitting in the girls’ beds in their flat. He’s got on his lap this little book called Cassandra and Her Cat Gustavus. So, we have released that print because it’s really cute. And also, I like cats’.
Most importantly though, Miraphora is keen for House of MinaLima to inspire not just Harry Potter fans, but also graphic art enthusiasts.
‘We did a little survey recently and found that, for quite a high percentage of young people, it was the first time they’d been to any kind of art exhibition.
‘And they’ll always be one in every group who comes up to us and says they do graphic design because of what we did in Harry Potter, and that’s wonderful. If I can at least contribute a little bit to what people want to achieve then that’s just great.’
House of MinaLima is situated on 26 Greek Street, Soho, London. For more details, visit their website.