Christine Ferrara, a 39-year-old public affairs director for the Institute for Advanced Study, a research center in Princeton, New Jersey, has a passion for modern architecture and design. It began in 2008, when her husband, Steven Birnbaum, a technology consultant, bought her an airy modern home with floor-to-ceiling windows.

It was to be her own little place, to decorate as she pleased without regard for his more traditional tastes or worrying that their three children might break something. “I had seen the house on Craigslist and thought it was too frivolous to buy for myself,” she said. “But he gave it to me for Christmas, probably not realizing what he would unleash.”

She has since bought six more modern houses and filled them with modern furnishings - streamlined upholstered sofas, leather loungers, molded plastic chairs, glass tables, Pop Art and steel lamps - which she is constantly rearranging and staging for photographs worthy of the cover of Dwell or Architectural Digest. Except for one thing: the size of the rooms.

Ms. Ferrara, who posts the pictures on her blog, Call of the Small, is one of a growing number of devotees of miniature modern design. With their love of sleek interiors, mini-modernists are unlike the vast majority of dollhouse hobbyists, who tend to favor more ornate Victorian and Tudor styles.

Today there are a number of blogs like Ms. Ferrara’s showcasing tiny modern interiors. And an increasing number of manufacturers are producing mini-modern homes and furnishings for people to create fantasy spaces that, at full size, would be too impractical or expensive to own.

“With three kids, my house is fine, it’s comfortable, it works,” said Ms. Ferrara, who keeps her mini-modern houses in the basement. “But with my mini houses, I get to be creative and take risks,” like putting a white fauxfur rug on the floor.

She can also buy miniature replicas of modern furniture by designers like Le Corbusier or Charles Eames for less than $30 apiece - a fraction of what the full-size versions would cost.

Ms. Ferrara haunts Internet auction sites and online toy sellers for vintage and new mini-modern items made by companies like Reac in Japan and Elf Miniatures in England .

Annina Gunther, a graphic designer in Brighton, England, said that when she first started her collection, she “worried about telling people, like they would look at me funny. But when they see it, they get it.”

Ms. Gunther, 28, has four dollhouses, which she stages for photographs that she posts on her blog, Miniatures by Annina, and on Flickr. The rooms have an urban melancholy reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting.

“I am not creating dream places,” she said. “I want to show the reality, the grit and the mess of living in the city.”


By KATE MURPHY


DAVID AZIA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Devotees of miniature houses include details like a couch, modeled on an Ikea design, by Annina Günther.






PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT PRESUTTI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Christine Ferrara likes to take a bold approach to the modern furnishings in her small-scale home.