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.

The perfect beach house retreat

If you caught the winter blues, then retreat to this cozy sunlit beach home by Michaela Clites (Littlehaulic) and you’ll feel warm in no time. Wander through each room and try to catch all the ocean-themed details and decorations. You can see close ups of the house on the builder’s Flickr gallery.

Coastal Breeze Beach House

Coastal Breeze 04

The Houses of Parliament debut at BRICK 2015 in London

The Palace of Westminster, known to most as the Houses of Parliament, has been built in 1:650 scale by Rocco Buttliere. The model is making its debut at BRICK 2015, which takes place at the London Excel, December 11th-13th.

Rocco Buttliere is a fourth-year student in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology and his amazing 1:650 scale builds, depicting famous skyscrapers and landmarks, have been the main focus of attention. His collection includes models from eleven global cities including Chicago, New York City, Dubai, Paris, Los Angeles, Toronto, Shanghai, Dallas and of course, London.

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign all 43 of Rocco’s models are making their way to London and will be on display at BRICK 2015. You can find out more about Rocco and his models, including digital downloads of his work, on MOCpages.
 

Venetian architecture in a patchwork style

Root Canal by Lab Synth is a marvelous and thorough design down to the last detail. One can find such an architectural experiment chaotic, but I’d call it extravagant. In the description of his work Lab shared that he had started with that massive golden window, and I can clearly imagine how the whole diorama was growing section by section until such a bizzare interpretation of a Venetian canal was born.

Root Canal (MOC)

The Church of Tiny Things

This microscale cathedral by David Hensel is a lovely piece of work. A handsome splash of dark green in the roofing breaks up the light grey, as do the various pieces David has used to add texture. The corrugated tubes and telescopes are nice touches, but it’s the use of Mixel joints as flying buttresses that’s attracting all the attention over on Flickr.

Microscale is fun!

I’m less convinced by the loose tiles David has employed for the ground around the building. It’s making me think of those photographs of lonely churches standing amidst the ruins of bombed-out towns during WW2. Unless that was the look David was aiming for, I think I’d have preferred some kind of “properly built” surroundings.

Never trust a model you can’t pick up and turn upside-down – that’s my motto. However, the rest of this is so well put together I’m going to let it slide. Nice work.

The Ruins of St Paul’s: glorious rather than ruinous

This impressive creation depicting the Ruins of St Paul’s by Alex Hui was built for the Macau X LEGO Exhibition. The model is deceptively large at nearly four feet tall.

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The Ruins of St. Paul’s, located in Macao, refer to the façade of what was originally the Church of Mater Dei built in 1602-1640 and the ruins of St. Paul’s College, which stood adjacent to the Church — both destroyed by fire in 1835. The sculptured motifs of the façade include biblical images, mythological representations, Chinese characters, Japanese chrysanthemums, a Portuguese ship, several nautical motifs, Chinese lions, bronze statues and other elements that integrate influences from Europe, China and other parts of Asia.

Ruins of St Paul's

Alex chose to build in a sufficiently grand scale to allow the carvings and sculptures to be accurately depicted in LEGO and took 6 months to complete the build. The model is approximately 1.2m high and is constructed solely in light gray and dark grey. The use of dark grey is very effective for highlighting the depth of the central sculpture and really captures so many of the fine details from the original. My own favourite part is the winged ‘Holy Spirit’ in the triangular pediment at the top, which symbolizes the ultimate state of divine ascension as seen in the zoomed image below.

Zoom in of the build

The roof, the roof, the roof is afire...

Following on from Jennifer’s recent post on waterfalls, here are some more creations with brick-built “special effects”. This ramshackle Laketown house by David Hensel features a convincing fireball rolling up from the roof…

Fire and Water

It’s difficult to depict fire with bricks without it looking like a pixellated explosion from the 8-bit era of gaming. I think David has pulled it off here, with the outer layer of transparent bricks and the darker colors at the edges simulating an expanding ball of flame.

I recently spotted another brick-built explosion which used very different techniques but created a similar sense of energy and motion. This fantastic tower explosion was part of Marc Gelaberto‘s pirate display at a show in Barcelona…

[MegaMOC] Fortaleza de Santa Catalina

It’s like a still from an action movie – the fireball blossoming, shattering the tower’s masonry as soldiers are flung into the air. Check out the priceless expression on this unfortunate soldier’s face!

[MegaMOC] Fortaleza de Santa Catalina

I’ve always shied away from building scenes like these, worried they wouldn’t live up to the image in my head. Seeing these great examples of fiery disaster, I feel some explosive action coming on in my building!

Microscale Aztec Pyramid

David Zambito built the smallest recognizable Aztec pyramid out of Lego using stacked corner panels to imitate the steps of the structure. Now the gods demand the sacrifice of your microfigs.

A distinctly British castle

As someone who likes to build castles out of LEGO, I know how tricky it can be to effectively construct round towers. It’s also a daunting challenge to find the perfect balance between too much detail in the build and not enough. Isaac Snyder posted this great example of how to achieve both of these delicate techniques earlier this week for the 13th Colossal Castle Contest.

LEGO Bodiam Castle by Isaac Snyder on Flickr

I’m not familiar with all the castles they have over in Europe, but I’ve seen Bodiam Castle in Britain, in picture books and websites many times. I think it’s especially neat when someone goes the extra mile and builds a close-to-scale model of a real piece of architecture.

I also liked this shot of the very detailed back with the towers and doors going every which way.

LEGO Bodiam Castle by Isaac Snyder on Flickr

The overall effect is very impressive.

An Altered Fate

David Frank and his wife, Claire, have a great collaboration going on. She writes the novels and he builds the scenes. David’s most recent build features a manor house, battle scene and giant river boat from Claire’s newest book, An Altered Fate.

David is famous for his massive builds, crowded with incredible detail, and this one is no different. The architectural detail on the manor itself is awesome and really catches the eye. However, unlike many gorgeous buildings that I’ve seen done in LEGO, David has continued on and given life to his mammoth manor. The battle scene, many small details, a blown out wall, the cliffs and the landscaping all combine to give this huge creation a real sense of “life”. Not to mention the beautiful river boat, which is in a class all of its own. I had the pleasure of inspecting this build up close and personal at BrickCon and there is a really a plethora of detail packed into this thing. Definitely check out the other pictures for more details of this wonderful build!

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Oscar Niemeyer’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasilia

Earlier this year I visited MoMA in New York City, where I saw a wonderful exhibit titled “Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980.” I was particularly impressed by the architecture of Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil built in a lightning blitz of construction between 1956 and 1960. Daniel Stoeffler has built a microscale LEGO version of the Metropolitan Cathedral, designed (as were most buildings in the city) by architect Oscar Niemeyer. I’d love to see Daniel extend this LEGO series with the dome and bowl of the National Congress Building, the president’s residence, and so on.

Cathedral_Brasilia (AVG)

The icing on the cake

Shockingly, it’s been almost three weeks since I last posted a LEGO model of a urinal, so I’ll rectify that oversight immediately with this charming scale model made by Flickr member Ashton6460. I’m not sure what possesses people to build these things, but I’m not gonna overthink it. Enjoy…

Microscale basilica

This microscale basilica by Jens Ohrndorf is adorned with details. I love the creative use of the Death Star part for the dome as well as a lug wrench for the cross. Check out this edited photo of the creation, which could pass off as an actual basilica to those not familiar with Lego bricks.