St. Stephen Church Tower
The theme LEGO Architecture contains several official LEGO sets which are more niche sets, dedicated mostly to lovers of architecture, which reconstitutes some of the most famous buildings of mankind out of LEGO bricks (The Eiffel Tower, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Elizabeth Tower – Big Ben, many skyscrapers), but also significant architectural residences of historical importance.
The style of these official LEGO works are distinguished by a miniaturization of the details of the buildings including sometimes the total renunciation of these details, emphasizing the proportions and colors.
A few months after completing the project “Tower Church St. Stefan” I wanted a new challenge, namely the attempt to create the symbol of Baia Mare in this style which requires small dimensions and the difficulty consists in keeping as many details as possible even if miniaturized. After 3 weeks of work I have managed to finalize the project keeping the details. The roof with four towers, the antenna, the railing balconies, the clocks for which I have created custom stickers after photos of the real clocks, the three protruding windows from the southern side along with their roofs, the two access doors, the rosette, the bricks from the remains of the old walls from the eastern side of the church, the former portal of the church which was preserved until today on the north side. I used transparent LEGO bricks for the interior of the tower to let the light “pass” through the main tower when the main windows are aligned. Together with the Big Print Company we managed to encrypt the name of the building represented on a glossy black panel. This screen-printed panel with the name of the building is another important and exclusive aspect of all official LEGO sets of the Architecture theme.
I used three times as many pieces as I would have needed (compared to how many I would have needed for the same shape) to give the aspect of brick built walls.
The “funniest” part is the lightning rod, which is basically a LEGO screwdriver located in a car tool kit of 3 official LEGO sets manufactured only in 2005.
Technical details
- Height: 22 cm
- Pieces: 273
- Project worktime: 300 hours
- Approximative cost: 65 euro
The LEGO model vs. The real tower
The Lightning rod on the top of the roof.
It’s actually a screwdriver from the toolbox of a LEGO car.
The Clock.
I’ve created custom stickers after pictures of actual clocks, but this time the clock’s indexes were rectangular and had an improved pixel-level shades of scarlet and black decorations of the clock.
The Windows.
I represented all the windows in same size, including the bars that existed while doing the project.
The Protruding bricks.
Only at the base I represented the last vestiges of the walls of St. Stefan’s Church demolished in 1847 that are still visible today on the eastern side of the real tower.
Three southern windows above the door.
I represented the three southern side protruding windows and their roofs.
The Rosette. The largest tower window whose position (embedded deep within the tower), with circular shape and complicated pattern were difficult to recreate on the large model and even more difficult to recreate on this one. I managed to do it with two arcs, one of which I turned into an unnatural constructive position used for LEGO pieces.
The remains of the entry into the former church.
They have been preserved until today on the north side of the church portal. I represented them with two dark bricks.
The access doors.
Having different sizes, the northern one being smaller but wider while the southern one is taller and narrower, I represented them in same size.
The black outlining.
It’s specific to all LEGO Architecture sets to have a black outlining around the building including a panel inscribed with the name of the actual building.
PHOTO GALLERIES
Overall view
Brick vs. LEGO Brick
Details
