Created by Hungarian design collective, Medence, for the Budapest Palace Of Arts, is the world’s largest music box. Playing the eerie and instantly recognisable Harry Potter theme song, the Mupa Budapest Sound Machine aims to combine playground activities and music.
The record-breaking instrument, taking over four months to build, is made out of bamboo and plywood and is outfitted with a piezo amplifier. The six flexible PVC sheets have more than two thousand punched in them (by hand) and are rotated by five 25kg rollers.
Due to the size of the music box, you must be over fourteen years old to operate, or play it. To produce the songs, one simply has to step inside the large cylinder shaped drum, or hamster wheel and walk forward. If you’re not a big Harry Potter fan, never fear, the remarkable instrument also plays five other songs, among them Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 and The Nutcracker.
Adding a BIG something extra to the shopping experience, the large instrument was placed in a local Budapest shopping centre for those passing by and was a hit for both the young and the old. With it’s unexpectedly satisfying acoustics, the music box seems to bring out the big kid in all of us – and for once, we don’t even feel the need to make the repetitive sound stop.
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