Tag Archives: Architecture

LEGO provides the perfect medium for recreating the buildings and landmarks of the world — LEGO has even released a line of official LEGO Architecture sets. Check out our coverage of the official sets, and don’t miss all the gorgeous architectural models created by LEGO fans from around the world.

Through the Siq to the hidden Nabatean city of Petra

As I wrote in introducing ArzLan’s LEGO Petra, I spent the summer of 1994 on an archaeological dig in Jordan, and visited Petra for one memorable weekend. Both Petra and Jordan as a whole remain one of the highlights of my life. Letranger Absurde has built a lovely microscale version of Al-Khazneh, the “Treasury” (actually an empty tomb), that greets each visitor to Petra as they emerge from the winding gorge called the Siq.

My one critique of this excellent LEGO model is that the sandstone geology of Petra is nearly as spectacular as the many structures carved into the rock face. Although building a detailed tomb using varying shades of tan and red might not have been achievable, plain brown LEGO for the surrounding rocks seems like a lost opportunity.

Al-Khazneh is, of course best known as the entrance to the fictional, trap-filled obstacle course leading to the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The facade is the most spectacular thing about the tomb — the interior is just an empty square chamber, though the acoustics are great for singing.

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When you gotta go, you gotta LE-GO

I suppose derjoe has just created another public space like a museum, library or cafe. But this is the first time that I’ve seen public toilets used as the theme for a LEGO ‘playset’. The builder has cleverly captured some of the common findings in a male public toilet block, such as urinals (and some pee ewwww), wash basin, toilet brushes, toilet rolls, and cisterns complete with their seats left up!

The playset is hinged and opens out to allow the paper towel dispenser and waste bin to be revealed. Thankfully the stalls all have their door closed in this view and the brown frog is not visible, although I find the fact that the toilet paper is placed the wrong way much more upsetting.

Overall, a quirky, fun build and I really like the colour scheme used, although it does not reflect the average public toilet here here in the UK. Also, for us females, a long queue of minifigures patiently waiting while the male toilets are empty would seem about right.

Modern architecture gets prettier and prettier (and smaller)

Paul Wellington‘s latest microscale building uses the still relatively new Mixel joint piece to create a fabulous pattern effect. Sometimes I think repeated elements like this can be overdone in microscale buildings — cool techniques but failing to capture the feel of real world architecture. That’s not the case here. I could totally see Paul’s building sitting downtown in any modern city.

Of course, Paul doesn’t need this building to show up in your city. He’s got a LEGO one all of his own that he’s been adding to over time. I’d heartily recommend a visit to his photostream for lots of pictures of his brick-built metropolis — current piece count sitting at around 19,000 parts!

Silly readers, bookshelves are for displaying LEGO!

Some builders go years without sharing any of their builds online, but the LEGO creations can be worth the wait. We featured a lovely LEGO Tardis by Alan McMorran way back in 2008 (and I had the pleasure of meeting Alan in person at BrickCon the next year). Alan is back with a fantastic bridge that spans shelves at two different levels in his study.

Alan tells me that the “Constantine Bridge” was inspired by the old London Bridge and the Ponte Vecchio in Venice — houses and their residents crowding the arch.

Click to see more of this great integration of LEGO and interior design

Information superhighway

Originally, the so-called “information superhighway” was a metaphor. Information would still be flowing along telecom trunk lines, just like it had before. The amount of info available through those same old lines was the real story of the early 1990s. But fast forward a few decades, to a future imagined by Carter Baldwin and Simon Liu: there’s so much information that a highway can barely contain it. Miles and miles of high-speed cable, just below the actual roadway. I’m not sure what’s going on in the wild undergrowth beneath the infrastructure, but that doesn’t interest me nearly as much as the infrastructure itself. The tubes! The girders!

Gateway to LEGO brick wall building

Tim Schwalfenberg’s latest build, Wizard’s Gate, is a masterclass in both rock work and brick wall building. There are a lot of lovely techniques packed in to really make this model top class. In particular, the wall portion of the gate uses a technique that requires some off-setting techniques using the headlight brick and some patience with clips and tiles, but the finished look is really fantastic.

Tim has provided a breakdown of the technique used to create the brick wall effect. As Tim explains, “The wall is constructed using headlight bricks to achieve a half plate vertical offset and then alternating clips on 1×2 tiles to form the exterior wall It’s similar to many of legostrator’s awesome techniques.”

A brand new LEGO brand store

If you’re interested in LEGO, you’ve got to know everything about toy stores in your town or city. But Adeel Zubair knows about toy stores a lot more than any of us; he knew to build the perfect one.

Not only is this an outstanding modular building with an exterior worth being placed in one lane with the legendary Green Grocer, but also a masterpiece of store marketing — just have a look at what is hidden inside!

Here are the lovely wooden duck and the lovely green dragon on the first floor, while the ground floor is all about shelves full of the newest sets. And don’t forget to check out the awesome Pick-A-Brick wall! Many more pictures are in the album on Flickr!

Gini’s Home Electrical Store is now open on BrickHills Avenue

It is the early 1960s and we are going for a stroll down BrickHills Avenue with builder Andrew Tate. Andrew has created a lovely scene with Art Deco-inspired architecture centering on Gini’s home electrical store on the corner. There is definitely evidence of the source of inspiration being a movie theater, and Andrew mentions the Warner Beverly Hills theater and Sunset Boulevard theatre at Disney Studios in his own description.

This build is not just a façade, as Andrew has also designed some interior views. The image below is clearly from Gini’s home electrical store. It looks to be a source for colourful refrigerators, washing machines and expensive cookers — more than enough to meet the desires of a mini-housewife!

The Edge: Step into a LEGO painting

It’s not often that I see a LEGO creation and think to myself “this is art.” But Lukasz Wiktorowicz‘s most recent build, “the Edge” certainly is art. Using both classic architecture and surrealist imagery, Lukasz created an absolutely stunning build. The proportions on this thing are spot on and the details are ridiculously, well, detailed. But what really pushes this build over the top is Lukasz’s out-of-the-box building techniques.

Normally I’m a stickler for lining up LEGO bricks perfectly (90 or 180 degree angles only, people!). A little crease from a cattywampus brick in an otherwise smooth wall is a downright sin in my book. But Lukasz purposefully stacked the bricks in his four pillars all askew and the resulting texture is fantastic! Another creative feature of this build is the base. When I accumulate a boxful of seemingly useless bricks, I shove them to the back of my shelf and forget about them. Instead of doing the same, Lukasz used those ball socket bricks to create an unconventional base for his build that makes the whole thing look like it is floating. Well done all around.

This roof is driving me bananas!

In yet another repudiation of the idea that LEGO pieces are only good for the purpose originally intended by their designers, alego alego has built a yellow thatched roof made entirely of LEGO bananas. And the cabin itself is built almost completely from brown Technic connectors. The base of this treehouse is also quite lovely, with a stone pathway, well, and lovely little bushes.

My only critique is that a lovely LEGO creation like this feels a little underpopulated without some characters to enjoy the scenery.

LEGO lighthouse shines brightly

Kołobrzeg Lighthouse is located in Kołobrzeg on the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. Piotr Machalski has build a very nice rendition of this landmark in LEGO, capturing its curvaceous architecture in brick form. The real lighthouse is is a red brick cylindrical tower that emits a light that can been seen nearly 30km away. There are lots of techniques for creating curves from LEGO, many of which hail from builders who favour castle-themed creations, but it’s always nice to see similar techniques used for other types of building. The main central portion uses a mix of round and regular bricks but the outer wall is all about the power of bending LEGO.

This lighthouse we blogged previously uses a similar technique as the main tower in Piotr’s build.

Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of the Big Shoulders

If Carl Sandberg had lived to see the skyscrapers of modern Chicago, I’m sure he would have been no less proud of his city than he was when he wrote his poem “Chicago” more than a hundred years ago. Rocco Buttliere has captured the Chicago skyline in LEGO with this substantial group of microscale buildings, including the John Hancock Center. The looming, iconic buildings certainly dominate the skyline, but I love the smaller buildings and landscaping that Rocco has included, like the Lookinglass Theatre building and the Seneca Playlot Park. My favorite LEGO building, though, is 900 North Michigan with lovely green glass.

As fantastic as the buildings look in the photo above, I love this top-down look — as though you’re flying over in a helicopter.

See lots more photos in Rocco’s photostream on Flickr.