Nestled in the heart of El Barrio del Carmen, the old town centre of Valencia, stands a beautiful gothic building which was once the residence of the Marquis de Malferit and is one of the best preserved buildings on the Calle Caballeros in Valencia. Towards the end of the 19th century, a series of renovations was carried out, radically transforming the interior as well as the façade to resemble the architectural style of the Italian Renaissance.
Since 2007, this building on the Calle Caballeros houses L’Iber, Valencia’s Toy Soldier Museum, thanks to the initiative of collector Álvaro Noguera Giménez. In the early 80s, Giménez was inspired to create a project to show to the public his impressive collection of models, which today total one million 95,000 of which are on display, with the rest in the process of being restored. Nearly a quarter of a century was needed for L’Iber Museum to open its doors, in turn becoming the most complete museum of its kind in the world, not only for the quality but also for the diversity of its collection of models.
These different collections and temporary exhibitions are spread across 15 rooms (covering more than 1000m2) which serve as a space to display to the public the history of Spain and the world through the use of individual toy soldiers, miniatures or scale models of scenes. L’Iber’s most important collections represent ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece or the Roman Empire, the Spanish Civil War and both World Wars, as well as comic heroes Corto Maltese, Lucky Luke and Tintin.
L’Iber Museum also features a complete library specializing in military history, the history of uniforms and toys, with particular emphasis on toy soldiers.
