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LEGO have been around since before I was born.
Sitting on the floor of my childhood home, my brothers and I used to have major competitions to see who could build the best houses, the best cars or any other idea that caught our fancy. Sometimes we were quite successful in our endeavors…sometimes it was an utter fail!
My three children all played with LEGO and although they are now grown, we still have the boxes filled with small pieces stored away as they can’t seem to part with something special from their childhood.
Lately, it seems that LEGO are everywhere we look. A new Primetime television show highlights LEGO enthusiasts and their creations competing to be crowned LEGO Master. A LEGO exhibit, The Art of the Brick, is touring the world (currently in Los Angeles) and highlights more than 100 original sculptures and re-imagined versions of some of the world’s most famous art masterpieces.
It was the knowledge of The Art of the Brick that prompted me to trek across Milan to visit the latest LEGO exhibition, I Love LEGO that was being hosted in Milan’s Museo della Permanente. It was a rainy day…the perfect kind of day to spend indoors enjoying an art exhibit and I was excited to see what this one offered, knowing that Art of the Brick had been in Milan during the past few years.
After paying my admission, I headed up the stairs to the exhibition rooms where there I was greeted with the first display…the Grande Diorama City. Consisting of 250,000 pieces, this city contains the Legoland Hospital and the Empire Brick Building (topped with King Kong) and a waterfront, a la French Riviera style, complete with small, luxury yachts that even Oprah would be tempted to book a holiday on.
Next on the agenda was a reconstruction of the Forum of Nerva, which was completed and inaugurated by Marcus Cocceius Nerva in AD 97. Though rather small, this figure was created with 80,000 pieces and looks like many of the buildings that can be seen in Rome. There are dozens of miniature soldiers and a tiny Julius Caesar-like figure!
Moving on, Space was the subject of the next diorama. Though the first two peaked my interest for their originality, I was a bit disappointed with this one. Consisting of only 12,000 pieces, it was laid out like a landing strip with individual space ships and vehicles laid throughout. Maybe some people can not build space ships, however, I felt that particular display had no originality, most of it looking as though it was constructed from store-bought kits.
The exhibit continued through a small, purple room, lined with pictures frames made of LEGO bricks highlighting famous works of art made in the LEGO people style…think Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, La Giaconda’s Mona Lisa and Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban.
Partitioned into three sections was a large room containing the next three exhibits. First, I studied the Pirate Diorama, another sad model that only incorporated 12,000 pieces and looked like it was also assembled from store-bought kits. There were two pirate ships, an island filled with palm trees and an alien-like octopus…or so I thought that is what it was.
In the next section was the Castle Diorama built from 250,000 pieces. This one at least appeared to be original and interesting to investigate the areas of the castle’s grounds.
The final section, was called the Eyrie, a massive fortress inspired by the television series Game of Thrones. This immense piece took two years to complete and covers a surface of nine feet, while the actual piece is almost six feet tall. There are many alcoves and openings to discover in the fortress and I was really able to appreciate the ingenuity and imagination required to build such a piece.
On I proceeded…
To the LEGO playroom?
Okay, I thought, this must be the pit stop for kids to duplicate what they have seen before moving on.
But…there was the gift shop…and there was the exit!
Seriously?
I paid 13 euro to see seven LEGO exhibits with only a third of them worth the admission price! This was not what I was expecting! I had anticipated huge, original pieces and duplications of masterpieces (not paintings…full-scale replicas).
So, what’s a girl supposed to do?
I forced myself to do another walk-thru, went back to my hotel room and looked up the dates of The Art of the Brick.
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I Love LEGO
- https://www.ticket.it/legomilano
- Address: La Permanente, Via Filippo Turati 34, 20121 Milan
- Hours: 0930-1930
- Admission: 8.00€ to 15.00€
- NOTE: This exhibit was active from October 2019 until February 2020 and is now closed.
The Art of the Brick
- https://californiasciencecenter.org/
- Address: California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90037
- Hours: 1000-1700, daily
- Admission: Adults (ages 18-64), $19.75, Children (ages 4-12, 3 and under free), $12.75, Students (age 13-17 College Students with ID), $22.70, Seniors (age 65+), $22.70.
- Note: Open now until September 7, 2020