The movie Spirited Away surely needs no introduction. Its commercial and critical success both in Japan and overseas as well as its numerous awards, including an Oscar for "Best Animated Feature", speak for themselves. Among the many famous works that Studio Ghibli created over the years, Spirited Away still remains one of the best known; Its characters, such as Haku (ハク), No-Face (カオナシ) and Yubaba (湯婆婆) are well beloved to this day. However, I would argue one of the most recognisable among them is not actually a figure, but the location of the film itself:
The Bathhouse.
Called Aburaya (油屋) in Japanese, the bathhouse is a Sentō (銭湯) where Chihiro (千尋) has to work in order to keep existing in the spirit world. The building towers over its surroundings and has a threatening but alluring aura to it. From the outside it appears almost abandoned, like an old ritual sight that has been forgotten ages ago. In contrast to that, the inside is cramped, suffocating and busting with life. Every inch of the gigantic structure seems to be packed with workers, creatures and spirits. Once you get swept away by it, there is no escape.
Spirited Away is probably the first Anime I have seen and the bathhouse's particular design and architecture have fascinated me ever since. In the movie many of the scenes and shots are solely dedicated to the building to either set the mood or establish where a particular room is located. Still, at the end of the film you feel like you have only seen a very small part of its interior. So many mysteries remain which I think is one of the reason the building is so iconic.
I have been wanting to recreate it with LEGO® bricks for a long time, but there were always two main issues. The first being the colour. The main structure is kept in a light red, a colour which is historically difficult to reproduce with LEGO® parts. That changed in 2019, when Vibrant Coral (Colour-ID 220) was introduced. Nowadays, there are enough basic bricks available in that colour in order to build the structure in its right hue.
The second issue was reference. As I said before, the bathhouse is massive but it is difficult to determine its exact size. Because the building does not exist as a physical set or a digital model, but is brought to live solely through hand-drawn images, its measurements and proportions vary from scene to scene. Same goes for the details. The important things such as the chimney and the top floors stay somewhat consistent, the details around its facade vary wildly. A few model replicas were realised over the years, so I mainly based my recreation on those. But I still had to take some creative liberties, especially when building the backside.
I decided to build the bathhouse in micro-scale, since Minifigure-scale would have been way to large and impractical. To still capture as many details as possible, I used many official LEGO® printed parts such as soccer goals (Part-ID 23969pb004) for the fences, chocolate bars (Part-ID 3069pb0440) for the front and plates with face-prints (Part-ID 3024pb017) for the train. Speaking of which, I tried my best to include all the memorable spots and locations from the movie, such as the Sea Railway (海原電鉄), the bridge, the stairs down to the boiler room and the ladder up to Yubaba's office.
As mentioned earlier, the Bathhouse is just as fascinating on the inside as it is on the outside. So I wanted to replicate at least some of the rooms too. The roof and the back-wall of the building can be easily removed to offer a look inside.
The main room features multiple baths which have been created with printed bowls (Part-ID 34172pb03). They are separated through panels (Part-ID 93095) and tubes funnelling the hot water to the baths are made with 1x1 round plates with bar (Part-ID 32828).
Beneath all of this is the boiler room, home of Kamajī (釜爺) and his Susuwatari (ススワタリ). The boiler itself is hidden in the dark, but many elements from the film can be spotted here as well, such as the shelves and bottles with all the spices, as well as Kamajī's teapot (Part-ID 98383). By including all these little details I hoped to create a complete and satisfying version of this iconic location.
一度あったことは忘れないものさ
想い出せないだけで
("Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can't remember it")