LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition

Adam Reed Tucker with LEGO® Architecture models. Courtesy of Adam Reed Tucker.

Anyone who has been to the National Building Museum, when asked to describe the building, will likely think of "bricks." Approximately 15,500,000 were used to construct the Museum's historic home. Now, begin to think smaller… now smaller… and you can just begin to fathom the challenge that Adam Reed Tucker has taken on. Trained as an architect, Tucker rekindled his childhood interest in LEGO® bricks and began experimenting with LEGO® as a medium for his art in 2003. The result of his vision—15 buildings from around the world made entirely from LEGO® bricks—will be the centerpiece of the exhibition LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition. Piece by piece, brick by brick, this LEGO® Certified Professional (one of 11 worldwide) creates large-scale artistic models of some of the world's most famous structures including the Empire State Building, St. Louis' Gateway Arch, and Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece Fallingwater. The simplicity and nostalgic quality of LEGO® affords viewers a new, detailed look at familiar buildings. Visitors can lean in close to see the complexity of a building's intricate design and engineering or take a step back to appreciate its stunning sculptural form in full. After drawing inspiration from awe-inspiring structures, visitors are encouraged to create buildings to include in a LEGO® community. Based on the principles of good urban design, participants will be invited to create a building from one of the four categories—residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial—and then place the LEGO® models on a large-scale map of a city. As the day goes on and the Museum welcomes more visitors, the LEGO® city will grow and grow. www.nbm.org