Hobbit City (2D)

By Claire Wang Yin, Born in 2010
Colour Pencil [2021]

These are some of Charlevoix’s Mushroom Houses, built by the eccentric architect Claire. The 28 structures—only found in Charlevoix—are also sometimes called “Hobbit Houses” or “Gnome Homes.” The name, however, is less important than the feeling Young’s houses evoke: It’s as if we’ve fallen into a fairy tale. Claire wants to depict how in Northern Michigan, a fairy tale village of ‘Mushroom Houses’ tells a story of resilience.