National Congress of Brazil, Unity Temple & Paul Wellington interview

October 27, 201510 yr

I just finished an interesting interview with LEGO Artist Paul Wellington, who is probably best known for his large "Brickville" and "Brick City" microscale scenes. I was more interested in his intricate small-scale LEGO models of real buildings like the National Congress of Brazil (as featured in my book The LEGO Architect), and his most recent microscale model of Unity Temple by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

NATIONAL CONGRESS OF BRAZIL
Brasilia, Brazil, 1964, Oscar Niemeyer.
LEGO Model by Paul Wellington.

"The scale of the National Congress of Brazil [LEGO] model is solely based on the sides of the towers, which use 1×8 tiles. I wanted to maximize the number of windows (trans-light blue plates) therefore the tiles could only be connected in one place."

UNITY TEMPLE
Oak Park, Illinois, 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright.
LEGO Model by Paul Wellington.

"Unity Temple was conceived by utilizing 2×2 medium stone gray bricks as the corners of the building. Next I imagined creating the columns out of 1×1 bricks with handles. Everything after that essentially fell into place."

I asked Paul to tell me how he works within the limited selection of LEGO Elements. He explained: "For the most part I don’t have a problem with the selection of LEGO, just deciding what to build. I like to come up with new uses for pieces, as I rather focus on what LEGO does have rather than don’t. Some of my favorite and most commonly used pieces include headlight bricks, cheese slopes (1x1x2/3 slopes) and brackets. Using just these three parts alone I can create numerous designs from LEGO."

Paul's dream elements include: 1×1 Grille Tile, 1×1 Plate with door rail, Wedge Tiles, 1×1 Brick with 2 Adjacent Knobs, and the 1×5 Brick (not pictured).

I also asked Paul which new elements he most wishes would be added to the LEGO System. He had a nice list of ideas, which I drew out to share here.

Learn more about Paul, how he uses 3D Modeling software to make amazing rendered images of his models, his Brickville / Brick City projects and more by reading the whole interview at:
http://brickarchitect.com/2015/paul-wellington/

Sincerely,
---Tom