5 world landmarks recreated in LEGO

February 10, 2022

Let’s rebuild the Taj Mahal, The Eiffel Tower and other landmarks with Lego bricks. After all, we did it with your favorite Netflix Originals scenes.

(*OK, so we cheated and asked TheToyZone’s designers to create the Lego buildings as digital renders using Bricklink’s software, but our brick count is deadly accurate.)

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

1. Taj Mahal, India

The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his “favorite wife,” Mumtaz Mahal, in the 17th century. Construction workers and artisans came from across the empire to build the white marble mausoleum at the heart of a 17-hectare garden. The four freestanding minarets were a new feature in Mughal architecture and enhanced an already astonishing sense of scale.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

The LEGO Recreation

Cost of building the Taj Mahal in real life (adjusted for inflation) $1 billion (source)
Cost of building the Taj Mahal in Lego (estimated) $2.1 billion

You will need:

176 types of brick
35,007,786,500 bricks in total
Cost of bricks: $2,186,819,336 / £1,629,103,866

The discontinued Lego Taj Mahal rose just 16” (43cm) high and could be built in seven modular sections to make it easier to clear off the kitchen table at teatime. But our 1:1 Lego rebuild is 240 ft (73 m) high and, like the real Taj Mahal, will last (on the internet) for hundreds of years.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

2. Statue of Liberty, USA

French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi began work on this gift to the United States with his team in France in 1876. They later took it apart and shipped it in pieces to Bedloe’s Island, the “gateway to America,” in the same manner that so many Lego constructions have been gotten out of the way since 1949.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

The LEGO Recreation

Cost of building the Statue of Liberty in real life (adjusted for inflation) $6.2 million (source)
Cost of building the Statue of Liberty in Lego (estimated) $1.1 billion

You will need:

168 types of brick
16,351,963,706 bricks in total
Cost of bricks: $1,164,434,496 / £867,462,944

The 2018 Lego Liberty was not the first Liberty set, but it was the brand’s largest architectural model at the time. “This has certainly kept me entertained whilst in lockdown,” enthuses one buyer of the 1,685-piece set. Perhaps if we’d known how long the pandemic would last, we would’ve started on a full-scale Lego Liberty for realz.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

3. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, UK

“The world’s most famous clock” towers over the UK’s parliament buildings in Westminster. But you’d be hard-pressed to get a good view of it right now while a massive restoration project envelopes it. Nestled in a tower built with 850 cubic meters of stone and 2,600 cubic meters of brick, the clock itself is made of opal glass and iron, with copper minute hands and hour hands made from 300kg of gunmetal

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

The LEGO Recreation

Cost of building the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament IRL (adjusted for inflation) $275.4 million (source)
Cost of building the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in Lego (estimated) $12.4 billion

You will need:

256 types of brick
206,636,181,818 bricks in total
Cost of bricks: $12,408,594,545 / £9,243,968,635

Our full-scale model, on the other hand, is made of 200 billion branded toy bricks. And while the retired Lego Big Ben set was 23 inches (60cm) high, somebody will need to climb 315 feet (96 meters) to adjust the “four detailed clock dials with movable hour and minutes hands” of our in-situ replica. Ding, dong!

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

4. The Burj Khalifa, UAE

“Inspired by the geometries of a regional desert flower,” the world’s tallest building is a concrete and glass sculpture with the flavor of classical Islamic architecture. The mixed-use development sucked up 330,000 m3 (431,600 cu yd) of concrete and 39,000 tons (43,000 ST; 38,000 LT) of steel rebar – the rebar used in the tower alone would extend a quarter of the way around the world if laid end to end.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

The LEGO Recreation

Cost of building Burj Khalifa in real life (adjusted for inflation) $2.1 billion (source)
Cost of building Burj Khalifa in Lego (estimated) $759.2 billion

You will need:

64 types of brick
2,528,544,159,544 bricks in total
Cost of bricks: $759,246,638,177 / £565,612,171,809

It took 22 million worker-hours to build the real thing – and they didn’t even lay any bricks. Our full-scale Lego Burj Khalifa, on the other hand, features two trillion, five hundred twenty-eight billion, five hundred forty-four million, one hundred fifty-nine thousand, five hundred and forty-four bricks. It is the biggest model in our project, and we don’t have time to work out how many Dad hours you’d need to build it.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

5. Eiffel Tower, France

The Eiffel Tower was the tallest built structure for over four decades after its 1889 completion. Although named after Gustave Eiffel – who designed the metal framework of the Statue of Liberty – the tower was designed by Stephen Sauvestre and engineered by Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier for Eiffel’s company. (Much like when Junior takes the credit after Mum took over early in the process.)

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.

The LEGO Recreation

Cost of building the Eiffel Tower in real life (adjusted for inflation) $45 million (source)
Cost of building the Eiffel Tower in Lego (estimated) $68.9 billion

You will need:

56 types of brick
276,715,798,464 bricks in total
Cost of bricks: $68,954,818,440 / £51,368,926,319

Teams of four workers beat each of the original tower’s 2,500,000 rivets into their latticed iron girders. This is why it will probably stand up longer than our 276-billion-piece replica. Still, as romantic gestures go, building a $69 billion Eiffel Tower for the geek in their life will probably win your kid hand-holding privileges on the walk home from school.

This article
originally appeared on TheToyZone.com and was
syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

Image Credit: TheToyZone / Neomam.