National Building Museum Exhibit Damaged by Earthquake

Name of Photoset: LEGO® Architecture Survives the Quake

Photos by: National Building Museum

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalbuildingmuseum/sets/72157627398453375/

Details: I've previously mentioned the display at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Recently, shortly after an earthquake could be felt in the DC area, the museum reported that two of the LEGO buildings were damaged in the quake. In spite of the few glued parts I noticed while seeing the display in person last year, apparently most of the display is not glued. About one fourth of the Burj Khalifa and the top of the Empire State Building fell apart, but the display is currently open again for visitors. I have not been able to find any information on when Adam Reed Tucker will be returning to repair these two models. On a happier note, this exhibit will now be open an entire year longer than previously announced - you can now see LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition through September 3, 2012 (which would make a nice addition to a trip to BrickFair VA 2012). While you're there, don't miss the ongoing Washington: Symbol and City exhibit.

National Building Museum Discount

Just a head's up: there's currently a week-long livingsocial deal for the National Building Museum that includes a discount for admission to the LEGO display (which we reviewed last year). It's something worth keeping in mind if you're in DC or planning a trip there soon (perhaps for BrickFair 2011).

Vestas Promotional Display

Name of Model: unknown

Photos by: Mike Walsh, Melonkernel, and LegoEH0520 (Sorry, no separate flickr set for that last one)

Found at: various places, click the above links for photos

Details: In late 2008, many LEGO fans were disappointed that they wouldn't be able to order the Vestas-employee exclusive Vestas wind turbine set that LEGO made. More recently, a LEGO/Vestas display surfaced in an airport in Sweden, which might not be the only such display. The display makes an interesting use of mixed scales, featuring a miniland-scale dollhouse, a minifig-scale layout, and larger sculptures.

LEGO Displays at the National Building Museum

Name of Display: LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition

Created by: Adam Reed Tucker

Photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dp3/sets/72157624700188398/with/4881577498/

Details: During my recent trip to BrickFair, I took a short detour to visit the National Building Museum. As I've previously mentioned, they currently have a display of Adam Reed Tucker's work entitled LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition. The LEGO display is one of several kid-oriented activities there - some of the other highlights include a separate building area and an arch-building exercise out in the middle of the museum. The LEGO exhibit features a selection of large landscape models - most of which have some portion intentionally left out so you can get a good look at the internal structure. One model, the White House, was left unfinished so that it can be periodically built during visits from Adam Tucker. The models themselves are mostly noteworthy for their size - the exhibit was well named in highlighting the ambitious heights of the models - and not for their construction techniques. If you look closely, you can even spot a few pieces that are not attached to any other LEGO brick, but rather were glued into place. In our book, that's considered cheating - but I guess it was given the OK since LEGO seems to be supporting the display. About half of the display is devoted to a large play area where kids are encouraged to make buildings and put them on a "map" (the parts, partially donated by the LEGO company, are clearly current to what you can buy in 2010). There's also a gift shop area featuring some of the Adam Tucker-designed LEGO Architecture sets. This exhibit started on July 3rd and runs through September 5, 2011 (yes - you can make it part of a 2011 BrickFair trip). The National Building Museum is itself an interesting historical structure - it's the "Pension Building" completed in 1887. In my flickr photo set, you can see a few photos of the original building and a minifig-scale LEGO rendition of it - complete with offices. The builder of the LEGO version isn't explicitly credited, but I'd assume that it was also Adam Tucker. To be honest, I preferred the non-LEGO displays - after seeing landmarks by Arthur Gugick and building part of the new Tower Bridge set at BrickFair, Adam Tucker's large-but-simple-except-for-glue models looked a bit disappointing. Maybe I was getting a bit LEGO'd out after the long weekend of all-LEGO-all-the-time, but I was thrilled to see some of the other displays. If it weren't for the tourist draw of bringing in LEGO fans (and inevitably, families) to see the LEGO-specific display, I actually think a better display would be a larger portion of their construction toys collection. There were also some great non-LEGO displays (sorry, no pics - photography is prohibited in the non-LEGO exhibits). Cityscapes Revealed: Highlights from the Collection showed a little bit of the collections not open to the public, including photography, bricks (of the fired-clay variety), steel, construction toys, and more I'm certainly forgetting. Washington: Symbol and City was a great treat, featuring historic displays about DC's city planning alongside history of various landmarks and even parts of some of the buildings. Not being able to make time to see more of the city this year, I was thrilled to get to see some of the actual details from various landmarks showcased in the museum - this display is so well-done, it almost justifies not being able to fit in many of the other landmarks during this trip. Drawing Toward Home: Designs for Domestic Architecture from Historic New England was a great look at architectural styles in New England and at how architectural sketches evolved over time. Overall, it was a great trip, and the "Washington: Symbol and City" exhibit in particular was fantastic. If you're reading this, you'd probably enjoy the LEGO display (especially if you want to try out the play areas), but I'd definitely recommend getting a more thorough look at the museum. The exhibits apparently swap out fairly often, so check the National Building Museum's website to see what's going on before you plan your trip. The museum itself is free (suggested donation of $5) and the LEGO exhibit costs $5 for a scheduled ticket. I have no idea what the schedule is to see more of the White House model being assembled.

Exhibits At Mark Twain's House

Name of Museum: The Mark Twain House & Museum

Found at: http://www.marktwainhouse.org/newsworx_published/newsworx_story_1113.shtml

Details: Back in the 1980's, a travelling show in the US (yes, kids, there really was a time when LEGO operated travelling shows in the United States) featured various elements of Americana shown in LEGO form. One of these was a large (roughly miniland-scaled) model of Mark Twain's house in Hartford, Connecticut. Mark Twain's house is now a museum open year round (not to mention a National Historic Landmark since 1963), and you can learn about the restoration and architecture of the house on the museum's website and at the museum. The LEGO model of the house is now on display inside of the life-size house on "long-term loan", but based on what I've heard about LEGO downsizing its model storage in Enfield, Connecticut, I think it's safe to assume that this model will be there next time you have a chance to visit the Mark Twain house (which we're all doing next time we're near Hartford, CT, right?) This past week, a life-size sculpture of Mark Twain was unveiled at the museum. The sculpture is itself an impressive collection (note the use of dark orange for the vest) and features radar dishes for the buttons on Twain's clothing. The face is made without too many special techniques, but clearly captures his likeness in tan bricks and plates. You can pose with this glued sculpture at the museum. As a final entertaining sidenote: those of us who have read the classic and out-of-print book "The World of LEGO Toys" will recognize this model of the Twain house as the unexplained "New England Victorian house" shown in the book. When I first saw that in the book, I remarked that it didn't look much like your average Victorian home in New England, and I wondered why they went with such a large and unusual design - now, the mystery of what inspired this brilliant model has been solved, and we can appreciate the model for it's likeness to the house it is based on.

This is Tuesday's model of the day

Piece of Peace UNESCO World Heritage

Name of Model: Piece of Peace UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Created by: Kazuyoshi Naoe

Found at: http://www.brothers-brick.com/2008/03/12/piece-of-peace-unesco-world-heritage-sites-in-lego-part-2/

Details: Piece of Peace is a touring exhibit that features landmarks from around the world rendered in various scales. The blog post linked to above is a round-up of details and photos of the exhibit that the Brothers Brick put together. Most of the models are worth featuring individually (and there are quite a few pictures that are linked to from the site above instead of being immediately visible), but there's only so much time and there are so many great models here. If you're like me, you probably don't recognize that many of the locations, but there is a list of all UNESCO World Heritage Sites at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ that can make it easier to figure the rest out. These are all very impressive - it's worth bookmarking and finishing later if you don't have the time to look at them all right away. Oh, and if you live in or near Nagoya, Japan, you can visit this one through March 24th.