Tag Archives: Historical

Building “Brick” Obama

Former U.S. President Barack Obama has become a BrickHeadz character, complete with a stately looking LEGO rendition of the Oval Office. Irish builder jarekwally built this display for a local LEGO event called Brick Obama, named after the Barack Obama Plaza shopping center where the event was held. Why is there a shopping center in Ireland named after Obama? As it turns out, the former president’s great-great-grandfather once lived in the Irish village of Moneygall. I learned something new!

Have a closer look at this brick-built Oval Office.

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The Jacobite Risings took 5 builders 10 months to build using 1 million LEGO bricks

This year’s big build by Brick to the Past is called ‘The Jacobite Risings: The Fight for Britain’s Throne’. The risings took place between 1689 and 1746, mostly in Scotland as supporters of the Stuart dynasty attempted to restore them to the throne. They were effectively Britain’s last civil wars.
The model is around 16 square metres in size, sitting on the equivalent of 105 48 stud baseplates. It has a mountain in its centre that reaches about 1m high. It was built by the Brick to the Past (BTTP) team, Dan Harris, James Pegrum, Simon Pickard, Tim Goddard and Steve Snasdell, and took around 10 months to complete.

See more detailed photos of this massive build and read our interview with Brick to the Past

A rare sighting is the big cat’s pyjamas for this colonel

The Colonel has found a real vantage point within this overgrown Meso-American watchtower as he manages to catch sight of the elusive jaguar. This build by Ayrlego uses a nice mix of LEGO flora to create a little jungle scene — even the sprue from the three-leaf plant is utilised and becomes a vine winding its way through the watchtower’s window. The textures and colours used for the overgrown watchtower are perfect allowing the scene to be both aesthetically pleasing and true to nature.

The jaguar is a rare animal but thanks to the new City Jungle theme, the population of jaguars has increased. You can read more about this new animal in our review of 6061 City Jungle Exploration Site.

Do you hear the people sing? Les Misérables in LEGO

The barricade scene in Les Misérables — the musical based on the novel by French poet and novelist Victor Hugo — is a powerful mix of song and drama. Loosely based on the 1832 Paris uprising, idealistic revolutionary students set up a street barricade and fight government troops to the bitter end. W. Navarre has managed to capture this scene fantastically with the large central barricade and a detailed backdrop showing narrow Parisian streets. The barricade looks the part as a jumbled collection of brown coloured LEGO wheels, ladders, furniture, windows and bricks.

There’s a lot of detail to be found relating to the musical version of Les Misérables, I particularly love details like the tear in the French flag, the lantern and the fatally wounded Gavroche.

You can see more images of this build and the other Les Misérables-themed LEGO creations in his album on Flickr.

Phwoarrr... Watt a steamy engine this is

Back in the 1770s a revolution was about to take place — not the sort of revolution that relies on weapons — but a steam-powered revolution that drove the masses from the fields to the factories. James Watt was a famous Scottish mechanical engineer and chemist who is most famous for his work designing and perfecting the steam engine, which helped to drive the Industrial Revolution. Nick Barrett has built the Watt Beam engine, complete with the large beam across the top, pistons, flywheel and crank, all made of LEGO bricks. There’s a lot to admire in this model — especially those pistons and the flywheel — but the detail of adding brick-built lettering? Watt a nice touch.

But where are Princess Ida & the Totem?

Ok, I have to admit when I first saw this I immediately thought it was supposed to be from Monument Valley, the addicting puzzle game from ustwo. But alas, Bangoo H was actually building the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. However, my misinterpretation of the source material most certainly did not take away from the fact that this is a serene little model that is wonderfully built.

The cascading water, terraces and steps all come together to perfectly represent some of the funnest levels of the…oh sorry…I mean, the ancient Babylonians’ amazing feat of engineering.

I betcha if you spun the base those two staircases would line-up perfectly, and a few stacked 1×1 yellow bricks couldn’t hurt either…

Treasures from the antique store

Builder Jared Chan has a superpower of taking large things and miniaturising them in LEGO. This set of vintage items looks like it’s been plucked right from a sitting room somewhere. I can’t decide on which is my favourite of them all; there’s more than one that really screams out to me. I’m torn between that the gramophone or that beautifully sculptured desk. Which is your favourite?

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.

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.

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.

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