In March of 2016 I received a request from Tibor Nagy (CEO at Brick Depot) to recreate, from LEGO bricks, a representative building from Cluj. Tibor’s first choice was the building of the Casino in Cluj, which I decided to finish by May 30 in order to have it ready for the annual LEGO Exhibition organized by the Brickenburg Association in Cluj. Through a sustained effort (12-19 hours a day), I managed to finish it on time and the work was a successful attraction of the exhibition.
The building, a historic monument, was erected at the end of the 19th century in Viennese style, based on the designs of architect Lajos Pákey. Having been restored in 2012, the Casino presently holds a cultural function.
Besides the building, I was able to recreate, also from LEGO bricks, a part of the garden that surrounds the Casino. In order to respect the building’s proportions as much as possible, I contacted architect Adrian Borda, and I would like to express my gratitude to him, as he was kind enough to help me with the building’s restoration designs.
I used over 15,000 LEGO bricks ordered from 8 countries, and the expenses of the work reached 3,000 euros. I created special stickers to represent the likeness of the doors and of the building decorations.
In some of the photographs, due to the work’s large size and the difficulty in transporting, some pieces are not well aligned.
Achieving a scale replica with the finest details of a real building by using only LEGO bricks was a considerable challenge that I tried to overcome through different solutions; the final result can be seen in the following compared details.
Technical details
- Size: 114 x 133 cm
- Number of pieces: 15,000
- Project worktime: 700 hours
The LEGO model vs. The real tower
The main façade.
Balustrades, access doors, windows, the building decoration, and the frontal part of the roof.
The back façade.
Terrain raised by approximately 1 m, access stairs, windows, building decorations.
The curved wings.
This is the part of the building due to which I was about to abandon the project already at its beginning. It was difficult to recreate and it is the only part where it was impossible to build a smooth roof due to the slope’slow angle and its curvature. The wings include, besides the roof, curving balustrades, pillars, and I had to find a solution for fastening them to the building and the pavilion.
Pavilions.
They have access stairs and roof slopesin low angles. A specific roof piece does not exist in the dark grey color of the real building, thus I had to usea light grey for the pavilions’ roofs.
4 “turrets”.
Each one of these is in fact a room attached to the building’s main volume, but they have individual roofs, and each one has two wooden and glass walls at the main façade, as well as a window, the glass of which was hard to recreate.
Details of the wings.
Balustrades, pillars, and the floor covering.
The large lamp posts.
The courtyard is illuminatedby 2 large lamp posts. These were reconstructed by architect Adrian Borda and sculptor Sergiu Rusu based on the drawings of LajosPákey, the Casino’s architect.
Interior.
The windows, arcades, and the reddish-orange colorof the decorative paint. I chose orange, the closest LEGO color.
Interior.
Some of the walls are shared (white part on the façade and orange in the interior), thus they should have been doubled (the white LEGO brick next to the orange one), however, this would have ruined the interior’s proportions. I resolved this problem by coating the walls with thin orange panels.
The bridge.
It connects the upper floorrooms. In the past a ceiling divided the main hall into ground and upper floors, but it was demolished, building the bridge.
I recreated the bridge balustrades by using LEGO glass window panes.
Small lamp posts.
10 small lamp posts illuminate the courtyard and the back entrance.
Access stairs.
The building is raised above the terrain’s level, having several access stairs.
Decorations.
I recreated the façade decorations, including the ones next to the access doors, by ordering special stickers.
The benches along the alleys.
The Casino is located in a historic area used for promenades, beloved by the inhabitants of Cluj, and there are numerous benches along the surrounding alleys, some of which I decided to recreate.
PHOTO GALLERIES
Overall view
The roof
Details
The interior
Brick vs. LEGO brick
Making Of
Exhibitions
- 6 August 2016 – June 2017 at Polus Center / VIVO! Cluj-Napoca, in front of the LEGO® Certified Store
- THE GALACTIC ETHNOLOGY (30 May – 05 June 2016, Cluj-Napoca) Exhibition organized by Brickenburg Association in collaboration with The Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography.
Visitors
The Casino in real life
