Tag Archives: Classical Bricks

900 years to wear down a temple, 7 days to build it out of LEGO

The proficiency of LEGO builders never ceases to amaze me. Timothy Shortell (AKA Classical Bricks) tells a story of coming across a photo of the Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia. A week goes by, and boom – we get this amazing model at the end of it. That’s no time at all! Just the careful positioning of the roof tiles for that jungle-weathered temple look must have taken a good while. In fact, all the weathering is very well judged, and the tree roots winding their way down to the ground – very nicely done. It’s almost unfair how quickly this was all achieved. When I build for a week, I’m lucky if I’ve even got a half-finished model at the end of it, let alone one as good as this!

Ta Prohm Temple

A palace fit for the sun

In the realm of LEGO castle builds, most of what we see is based off the European stereotype of grey fortresses, but thankfully this year’s Summer Joust building competition has a category for Middle Eastern creations. Instead of boring old grey, we get intricate tan! Talented castle builder Classical Bricks brings us the gates to a palace called Qasr Alshams, beautifully decorated with a touch of teal to complement its earth tones.

Qasr Alshams

What draws my eye in the build is the amount of depth alluded to by having the different levels climbing higher and higher; what we see is just a small segment of what is undoubtedly a sprawling palace complex, complete with baths, a harem, dining rooms, administrative offices, and everything else that I have read about in the Arabian Nights, but it seems much larger. The battle droid legs make for an excellent railing above the gates, and the heads of the same droids make a nice detail beneath the battlements on the left. My favorite piece usage, though, is the pickaxes for door pulls on the gates. After a long ride on my camel through the desert, across the hot sand—I don’t like sand, since it is coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere—this looks to be a welcome place to stop and rest. That’s assuming I make it past the guards, of course.