To build his gigantic Lego constructions, which usually require hundreds of thousands of bricks, Hungarian artist Balazs Doczy must first solve major “technical challenges”.
“Every structure has an Achilles heel. Once it is solved, the rest of the work is easy,” the 48-year-old told AFP.
He needed 90 helpers for one of his most recent works: a life-size Lego tram consisting of no fewer than 1.8 million parts.
Together they spent around 6,800 hours editing Doczy’s most ambitious project, which is now on display in a bustling square in central Budapest.
The 11-meter-long Legotram – commissioned by the transport companies and the Budapest Tourist Office for ‘public transport and creativity’ – has attracted a large crowd.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Malaysian tourist Lucas Chang, 32, while dance coach Barbara Rajnai said children at her son and daughter’s preschool told them to check it out.
– ‘Megastructures’ –
Doczy has been a professional Lego artist for over 10 years and works more as an architect than a builder. He relies on specialized software to make plans and only assembles bricks when he needs to test a particular design.
“Initially I make preliminary sketches, just like a painter, stacking bricks on top of each other in a digital environment,” he said.
“I set up the scale, identified recognizable elements and proportioned the other parts in relation to them.”
For his intricate dioramas, such as his model of Heroes’ Square in Budapest, each piece must imitate a specific detail.
In “megastructures” like the tram, imperfections even as small as a tenth of a millimeter can build up, leading to instability, he said.
“I always compare it to quantum mechanics and gravity: on smaller scales, matter behaves differently than on larger scales,” he said.
For example, blocks are glued together, an internal frame is added for extra support and experts are consulted to ensure structural integrity.
Doczy has also added some baseplates to the sides so people can place their own Lego bricks, which “has always appealed to me as it allows everyone to express their creativity and transform the sculpture into a community piece”.
Doczy was fascinated by Lego from an early age and assembled bricks together with his older brother, even though Western products were scarce in then-communist Hungary.
“We begged the neighbors’ children to bring their sets too, so that we could build bigger structures. We already had ambitions back then,” Doczy remembers.
His childhood passion was reignited years later when his nephew became fascinated by the colorful blocks.
When he looked at his brother, “our eyes lit up and we realized we had to start building again,” Doczy said.
Returning to Hungary from Indonesia, where he had been teaching diving, he and his brother founded a company called “Brick Workshop” in 2013 to create Lego designs and organize activities for children and adults.
– ‘Too valuable to throw’ –
In 2014, Doczy’s Lego model of Budapest’s iconic St. Stephen’s Basilica was featured during a Guinness World Record attempt, when volunteers built the then tallest Lego tower in the world for the basilica.
Three years later, he was officially recognized as a “Lego Certified Professional” (LCP) by the Danish company.
The coveted title – currently held by around 20 makers – is awarded to talents who create “stunning, innovative designs that help push the boundaries of creativity and engineering,” a Lego spokesperson told AFP.
The benefits are that you can consult regularly with other LCPs and have access to Lego’s sculpting software that allows Doczy to order “from the 14,000 different pieces in production,” he said.
But for some projects he has to scour the booming second-hand market for pieces. Luckily for him, there are even stones from the 1970s.
“As a diver, I have never seen Lego blocks taken from the sea,” says Doczy, who divides his time between Budapest and the Spanish island of Mallorca. “They are just too valuable to be thrown away.”
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