The Big Model

St. Stephen Church Tower

I started this project as a game out of curiosity one evening in February 2014, to see if I could build a tower using set pieces of the official LEGO Tower Bridge (10214) from London that I had in my collection. That evening turned into four months of creative work, documentation, ordering parts from 9 European countries, photo shootings and creating dedicated stickers. The challenge of such a project consists in the limitation given by the shape and the color of the pieces that LEGO has ever manufactured, with which you try to follow as much as possible the dimensions, proportions and the colors of the real tower. Regardless of the cost of parts or the fact that some parts are not available in my collection and that I had to order them and then no longer use them due to the many ideas that have emerged during these four months, ideas that have improved the final result, I think I succeeded with reasonable resources to respect the details of the St. Stefan’s Church Tower.

Technical details

Height: 74 cm
Pieces: 2259
Project worktime: 4 months
(1200 hours)
Approximative cost: 1000 euro

The LEGO model vs. The real tower

The Cross from the top.

LEGO is an international company which does not produce pieces with religious symbols and Tomoiagă Grigore from Maramures gave me the solution.

The windows in the roof.

Two in the east and west side of the roof.

The columns in the eastern balcony railing.
After 2 months I noticed that there was a space between these columns in the eastern part, while on the other 3 sides the columns had space between them, which led to an extra week of work and the remaking of the project’s final size. I noticed this space quite late because the space around the tower was not accessible in the last 2 years due to the rehabilitation of the City Market and the inauguration only took place in May 2015.

Lighting reflectors.

Meanwhile the lighting reflectors of the real tower were dismantled and replaced by another lighting solution, but when I created the tower they were accurately represented.

The Window above clocks.

Meanwhile, the windows were fitted to the actual tower, but when I was working on the project they were represented by simple holes.

The Clock.

I’ve created customized stickers after images of the real watches, which were afterwards processed. Through the photo processing, the watch’s forefingers had to be removed and an improvement on pixels of the scarlet and black shades of the clock’s decorations had to be made.

The Forefingers of the watches.

I chose them from the utensils LEGO category and are represented by some keys.

The Windows.
They were hard to represent because they have suffered many changes during the centuries and it was very hard to find two windows that have the same shape. While I was working on the project the windows had bars on them, a detail which I represented in the work.

The panel with the knight and his sword.
The south side has been kept visible until today and I represented it by creating a dedicated sticker (after a photo of the actual plate). According to some historical sources it represents a legal right received from the city, namely the beheading of culprits after judgment. According to others it’s just a relief surface added later onto the tower.

The Protruding bricks.
I’ve represented as closely as possible the last vestiges of the walls of St. Stefan’s Church demolished in 1847, which are still visible today on the northern and eastern sides of the real tower.

Three windows above the southern door.

I represented the three protruding windows on the southern side and their roofs.

The panel with the city emblem.
The bas-relief representing scenes from the mining town emblem, is preserved and visible to this day on the northern side. I represented it by creating a sticker (dedicated after a photo of the real panel).

The panel with King Mathias’ effigy.
Only the place where the effigy of King Mathias relief was once is still visible today, on the northern side of the left bas-relief with coat of arms. It has got lost over the years (or has been “lost” since in relatively modern times was still present on the tower). I represented it through a panel in relief, so that at least the place to be able to be identified.

The Rosette.
The largest tower window whose position (embedded deep within the tower), with circular and complicated pattern was difficult to recreate with nothing but a rim from a LEGO truck!!! and a few arches, some of which were turned into an unnatural constructive position for LEGO pieces.

The Remains of the entry into the former church.
It has been well-kept until today on the northern side the portal of the church (on which it is still visible a rich ornamented frieze), which I represented trough dark bricks and for the frieze I created a customized sticker, after a photo of the real ornaments.

The Communist panel.
Set in the time of communism, it contains numerous historical errors. I represented it with a customized sticker, after a real panel photography, in order to have a topic of conversation.