LEGO is hands down one of the most popular inventions of all time. Almost every house in the world will have some pieces of those tiny interlocking bricks laying around somewhere just waiting to be stepped on.
If you’ve not played with LEGO since you were a kid, you’ll be surprised (or perhaps not surprised, given the ubiquity of the toy and the human capacity for taking things to the extreme) that LEGO sculpture building is an art form in its own right.
Across the world, people engage in competitions, challenges, and pure indulgence in creating some of the most impressive builds out of the same stuff you used to play with as a kid. It’s a whole little world unto itself and we’re about to dive right in and show you the best of the best of the best in LEGO creations.
11 – Yellow
Can LEGO be art? That’s the question that artist Nathan Sawaya posed when he decided to make his medium the iconic bricks.
Sawaya’s most famous piece, Yellow, uses 11,000 bricks and questions the connections between childhood and adulthood and baring our souls to the trauma of the past. Deep.
10 – Brickley the Sea Serpent
Brickely is the famous, friendly sea serpent who started life at the Orlando LEGO Imagination centre and soon found a home across the country as a travelling serpent who pops up at various LEGO centres.
9 – A Volvo XC90
Volvo and Legoland teamed up to build this full-sized replica of the Volvo XC90. Made out of bricks, it was designed to highlight the importance of driving safely and was unveiled at the New York Motor Show.
8 – The Kennedy Space Center
Taking 2,500 hours to build, this 750,000-brick Kennedy Space Center is one of the most complex LEGO builds on the planet. It includes a 6.13ft-tall Space Shuttle on the launch pad and a 6ft tall Vehicle Assembly Building made out of 50,000 bricks.
7 – Lego Montmartre
As with the above, Legoland Windsor in the UK kind of takes the brick for its epic creations so we’ll try not to fill this list too much with builds from them alone. However, we can’t quite go past this recreation in miniature of the iconic Parisian building, La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre.
6 – Polar Bear
Another artist, Sean Kennedy, works with LEGO to create incredible sculptures like this one. His polar bear, which was displayed at the Philadelphia Zoo in 2010, is made from 95,000 LEGO pieces and took six people over 1100 hours to create.
5 – The Omer Tower
In 2017, brick fanatics in Tel Aviv, Israel, took out the top spot for the tallest LEGO building of all time with this insane 118 ft monstrosity. Using half a million bricks, the tower required a crane for its completion and is dedicated to 8-year-old cancer victim and Lego-lover, Omer Sayag.
4 – Bugatti Chiron
We had one car up the top but in terms of coolness, this full-sized Bugatti Chiron is the clear winner. This one is slightly cheating however as it’s made out of LEGO Technics, the more engineering-focused arm of LEGO. It does however really drive, with a theoretical top speed of 18 mph.
3 – Lego Pharaoh
Okay, it’s another Legoland Windsor creation. But, this LEGO pharaoh is absolutely incredible and we just had to include it. Standing at over 16 ft tall, it’s one of the largest LEGO structures ever created. It weighs over a tonne and is built from 200,000 LEGO pieces.
2 – A Full-Size House
Top Gear presenter James May went all out and, with the help of 1000 volunteers, built a full-sized, real house out of LEGO. It’s made up of 3.3 million bricks and is complete with a working toilet, shower, and a very uncomfortable bed.
1 – An X-Wing
The grand finale is this massive LEGO X-Wing Starfighter of Star Wars fame. The 23-tonne build comprises 5.3 million LEGO pieces and is certified as the world’s largest-ever LEGO creation. Being a full-scale replica, the construction is big enough to sit in but unfortunately, it doesn’t really shoot. Still, a monumental effort.