Tag Archives: London

London in a snow globe

The professional builders from Bright Bricks have a reputation to uphold for building big things for Christmas. In 2011 their 38 ft brick-built Christmas tree dazzled travelers passing through St. Pancras Station in London and set a record for being the world’s largest LEGO tree. Last year they built the world’s largest LEGO Advent Calendar for Covent Garden. This year they’ve built a fantastic collection of London landmarks to go inside the world’s largest LEGO snow globe. It measures an impressive 3m x 3m x 3m (10ft x 10ft x 10ft). It’s quite possibly the only LEGO snow globe and neither the snow nor the globe are made of LEGO, but who cares?

London South 2

Snow gets blown through the globe and it has a tunnel down the middle that visitors can walk through, to be pretty much surrounded by it and to possibly feel a bit like London mayor Boris Johnson did in Feb 2009, when one of the largest snowfalls in recent history dumped 20 cm of white flakes on his city, bringing it to a stand-still.

Big Ben and Nelson's column

I had the pleasure of visiting the Bright Bricks workshop in early October, when this project had just gotten underway. It must be tempting to cut some corners (perhaps even literally) here and there when building professionally for an audience that largely consists of people who don’t build with LEGO and who may not appreciate all the intricacies, but these are high-quality models. Having seen some of the builds at an early stage, I was very impressed by the level of detail and the clever build techniques that went into them.

The snow globe is on display at Covent Garden London until early January.

St Paul’s Cathedral in London

Eurobricks member MECHALEX built London’s St Paul’s cathedral and took a set of photos that had me fooled for a while thinking it was a render. Another feature that escaped my first glance was that the model contained at least 6 colors instead of the 3 obvious ones of tan, white, and light grey. Using those extra shades in a subtle manner probably contributed to a subconscious portion of my appreciation of the creation at first sight.

Double-decker London Routemaster bus

Ralph (Mad Physicist) is assembling a fleet of British vehicles for displays he contributes to as part of the Brickish Association in the UK. His latest is a Miniland-scale Routemaster, better known as the double-decker London bus. Ralph captures the iconic curves wonderfully.

Routemaster (1)

I never got the opportunity to take a ride on one while I was in London a few years ago, but oddly, there’s one that a local garden center uses as a greenhouse up the road here in Seattle…

London 2012 – a retrospective Olympic roundup in LEGO

I’ve generally avoided news about the 2012 Olympics in London in order to preserve some measure of surprise as I watch the much-delayed — and rightly much-maligned — TV coverage on NBC here in the States. That’s meant that we haven’t really featured much in the way of LEGO Olympics models here over the last couple of weeks. Let’s correct that, as I watch the closing ceremonies, in one fell swoop.

Her Majesty the Bloody Queen stole the show at the opening ceremonies, but didn’t look especially entertained during what was actually quite an amazing show. Iain Heath captures the Queen’s look when she visited the Athletes’ Village the next day.

Presenting: Her Majesty The Bloody Queen!

Warren Elsmore spent 250 hours and 300,000 bricks building a 1:500 scale model of many recognizable Olympic buildings.

IMG_6454

The Guardian commissioned a series of brick-by-brick stop-motion videos by Fabian Moritz, showcasing important moments during the Olympics. My favorite was Michael Phelps’ 16th gold medal.



Finally, don’t miss McKayla Maroney’s disapproval in the post right below this one.

Olympic Fever

The UK is currently gripped by both Olympic Fever and a heatwave… one way to cool off would be to dive into this Gold medal quality swimming pool MOC from Gary Davis (Bricks for Brains):

LEGO Olympics 2012 Aquatic Centre front view
The new Olympc minifigs look great in this amazing scene, however my favourite aspect has to be the synchronised swimmers!

LEGO Olympics 2012 synchro team team

There are a variety of viewpoints to enjoy on his Flickr stream, plus I highly recommend his Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds Lego creations. And for those of you wanting to see this up close and personal The Olympic Pool can be seen in the Westfield Stratford Lego Store in London.

Gary is a member of the Brickish Association  (UK Adult Fan of Lego user group).

New LEGO Architecture Set: 21013 Big Ben [News]

Lego’s Architecture sets seem to be coming in rapid succession lately, with the Sydney Opera House announced just back in February. Now Lego has announced their latest set, 21013 Big Ben, giving some well-deserved microscale attention to a famous landmark previously only seen in the cartoonized world of Cars 2.

Big Ben Official photo for TBB

Big Ben, one of the UK’s most recognizable buildings and a global symbol of Victorian London and the Gothic Revival style, has been recreated as the latest set in the LEGO® Architecture series.

Big Ben, officially known as the Clock Tower, has stood at the north-eastern corner of the Palace of Westminster in London for more than 150 years. It was designed by the unlikely team of Classical architect Charles Barry and Gothic Revival pioneer Augustus Pugin and completed in 1859.

Big Ben is the fourteenth model in the LEGO Architecture range, which uses the LEGO brick to interpret the designs of iconic architecture around the world. It is the first model to be designed by Rok Zgalin Kobe from Slovenia who joins Adam Reed-Tucker as a LEGO architect.

“The most challenging in creating this model was representing the richness of 19th century Gothic Revival architecture in a scale usually more appropriate for modern or contemporary architecture of smooth surfaces and clean lines,” said Rok Zgalin Kobe.

Charles Barry won the competition to build the new Palace of Westminster in January 1836. His initial designs were without the clock tower that would become known as Big Ben. As his own style was more Classical than the increasingly popular Gothic Revival, Barry asked for assistance from Augustus Pugin, a leading light of the movement that left its indelible mark on the Victorian era around the world. The design of the interior of the palace and the clock tower are thought to be his work.

LEGO Architecture products features well-known buildings, and the work of important architects Aimed at inspiring future architects, engineers and designers as well as architecture fans around the world, the range contains a booklet featuring step-by-step building instructions that is prefaced by exclusive, archival history, information and photographs of each iconic building, its design origin, its architect and its architectural features.

The LEGO 21013 Big Ben is available for purchase from June 1 in LEGO brand retail stores, LEGOLAND Stores and online at http://shop.lego.com/. The product is designed for ages 12+ and includes a booklet with facts and history about Big Ben. Recommended retail price is $29.99 or €29.99.

For more information about LEGO Architecture visit http://architecture.lego.com/

Christmas gets off to a LEGO start with 38-foot tree at St. Pancras in London

LEGO Certified Professional Duncan Titmarsh of Bright Bricks (who was also involved in building James May’s LEGO house) recently led a project to create what is likely the world’s tallest LEGO Christmas tree at London’s St. Pancras train station.

LEGO Christmas tree

Standing 38 feet (12 m) tall and built from 600,000 bricks, you can see the tree in person on the lower concourse at St. Pancras through January 2.

Thanks to all the readers who sent us links about this.

Update: Lots more pictures on The Verge.

LEGO Liberty Inn, London

I’m finding it difficult to pick my favorite shot for this blog, because the Liberty Inn by ZCerberus is just lovely. Every angle has something visually captivating. I picked one to put here, but I whole-heartedly recommend perusing the flickr gallery.

Thanks for the tip, Walt!

Royal wedding

Even though we Americans threw off the shackles of monarchy more than 200 years ago, we still find something fascinating in the pomp of a royal event, like the wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton today tomorrow in London. Justin Ramsden made a name for himself with his Amy Winehouse sculpture last year, and even got a job as the youngest-ever Model Maker at Legoland Windsor as a result. His latest sculpture honors the wedding couple.

LEGO Wills & Kate (Best Wishes)

10214 Tower Bridge unveiled at Brickfair – London Bridge with 500 tan cheese slopes! [News]

We just got permission from LEGO to publish this a little early. Tonight, at BrickFair, LEGO will officially unveil their latest exclusive set, 10214 Tower Bridge!icon

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The official press release:

10214 – Tower Bridge

Ages 16+. 4,287 pieces.
Price: US=239.99, UK=204.99, DE=219.99, CA=314.99

Build London’s famous Tower Bridge!
Stretching over the River Thames since 1894, the famous Tower Bridge of London, England is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. Now you can add this timeless classic to your LEGO world buildings collection! Designed with advanced building techniques and rare colors and elements, the Tower Bridge is complete with its iconic paired towers and a drawbridge that really opens. Fun to build and display, it locks together solidly but can be taken apart in sections for easy transport. Includes 4 miniature vehicles; a black London taxi, a traditional red double-decker bus, a yellow truck and a green automobile. Completed model measures 40″ (102 cm) long, 17″ (45 cm) high and 10″ (26 cm) wide.

  • Includes 4 miniature vehicles: a black London taxi, a yellow truck, green automobile and even a traditional red double-decker bus!
  • Features the iconic paired towers and a drawbridge that really opens and closes!
  • Includes unique printed shield!
  • Features hundreds of 1×1 slopes in tan!
  • Many useful arches, angular bricks in tan!
  • Includes 4 blue base plates and over 80 windows!
  • Tower Bridge is ideal for building and display – it can be taken apart in sections for easy transport!
  • Add this amazing landmark to your LEGO world buildings collection!
  • Completed model measures an impressive 40″ (102 cm) long, 17″ (45 cm) high and 10″ (26 cm) wide.

Also check out this video for behind-the-scenes goodies:

Lego Tower Bridge Exclusive

God save the Queen.

Last month‘s challenge over at Lugnuts has, as always, yielded some amazing builds. Peter Blackert‘s Austin FX4 London Black Cab caught my eye in particular. I’ll be right honest — I thought it was a hearse. Seeing it’s something different doesn’t phase me in the least, though. I won’t deny the sleek styling and fantastic lines!

Not a Routemaster

It seems that most of the buses we blog are variants of the iconic London Bus (the Routemaster). Today I’d like to introduce you to the more modern buses seen in Europe. Both make excellent use of the new windscreen piece.

NL Bus

This bus by Nieks (mrbrick) runs in Breda, the Netherlands.

UK Bus

While this one by MasterChief1 is a common site in many English towns and cities. I do have to send the purists a warning that there is some use of double sided tape here.