Brickman’s Wonders of The World is currently showing at the Queensland Museum until 4 October 2021. The Lego exhibition features 50 displays created by Ryan McNaught and his Brickman team.
Can you believe the exhibition is made up of more than two million Lego Bricks and it took over 5,000 hours to build?
I was fortunate to have a sneak peek and it’s well worth going, with an affordable ticket price. My personal favourite was the detail on the Arc De Triomphe and St Basil The Blessed Church. You might wonder how they created the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the RMS Titanic as it splits in half.
You can travel around the world and see many landmarks, iconic buildings and famous scenes. Closer to home you walk around the Great Barrier Reef and spot the different species of fish.
Highlights of the Exhibition
Lego Space Shuttle – This huge model was featured on Channel Nine’s Lego Masters Australia show. It stands at 4.5 metres high and weighs over 400 kilograms. It’s the first model you’ll see at the entrance and takes the prize for the most bricks, longest build, and tallest.
RMS Titanic – This iconic ship sank in 1912. Don’t forget to look out for Jack and Rose.
Empire State Building – An iconic New York City building includes King Kong. This model is a fun take on the building we’ve seen many times in the movies.
Golden Gate Bridge – Another iconic American feat of engineering which is perhaps one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. The model stretches 4.2 metres long.
Leaning Tower of Pisa – A popular tourist spot in Europe where this famous landmark has suffered an accidently lean due to poor foundations. It’s an accurate build.
St Basil The Blessed Church – A colourful and beautiful reproduction of this Orthodox church in the Red Square of Moscow. The original church took six years to build, but Brickman Mark Curnow took 320 hours making it the second longest model to build.
Michelangelo’s Statute of David – I just wish David was standing on the floor so I could take a selfie photo next to him, but it’s the same situation with the real statue.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa – This Lego model is way bigger than the original and sure to be a crowd favourite. It’s considered to be the world’s most famous painting due to the skill and her captivating smile.
Each model includes a description of the model, size, weight, number of bricks, hours, designer and builders. You’ll discover that it really does take a talented team to create these amazing models.
In case you were wondering, the models are transported in one piece and glue is used. The designers use a dedicated software program to help them create the 3D Lego models.
There are an additional 1 million Lego bricks at the exhibition, so you can build your own creations.
Lego Fun Facts
- More than 1.3 million LEGO bricks were used on the display
- The 50 displays took Ryan McNaught and his team 4,922 hours to build (205 days)
- Altogether, the displays in the exhibition weigh more than a tonne
- An additional 1 million LEGO bricks will be at the exhibition for visitors to build their own creations
- After the Space Shuttle the most time-consuming display to create was Moscow’s St Basil the Blessed Church clocking up 320 hours in build time
- The next heaviest display is the RHS Titanic weighing in at 120 kilograms and taking the team 240 hours to build
- At 3.6 metres high the CN Tower is the second tallest build in the exhibition
- The Golden Gate Bridge stretches to 4.2 metres long but is not the longest in the exhibition – that goes to the Tokyo Subway system map at 4.65 metres long
- The model with the second most bricks used is the Flying Scotsman, which is made up of 164,611 bricks
- Ryan McNaught and a team of seven Brickman builders worked together to create Brickman Wonders of the World
- The word LEGO was created by taking the first two letters of the Danish words LEG GODT, which means ‘play well’
- The humble LEGO brick is more than 50 years old – the bricks made in 1958, will still fit perfectly with those made today
- The moulds used to produce LEGO bricks are accurate to within two-thousandth of a millimetre (0.002 mm!). Because of this high degree of accuracy, there are only around 18 bricks in every million produced that fail to meet the company’s high-quality standard
- There are over 4 billion LEGO Minifigures around the world
- Laid end to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold in a year would reach more than five times around the world
- On average there are 80 LEGO bricks for every person on earth
- LEGO is the world’s largest producer of car tyres (even if they are really small!)
Tickets cost Adult: $19.50, Concession (13 years + Seniors) $17, Junior (3-12) $12.50 or Family (2A+2C or 1A + 3C) $59.
The souvenir shop on Level 3 stocks a range of giftware including hats, backpacks, t-shirts and water bottles.
About Queensland Museum
Queensland Museum Network (the Network) is the keeping place for the State Collection of more than 1.2 million objects and specimens, valued at more than $546 million, and approximately 14 million research collection items. For more than 150 years Queensland Museum has grown alongside Queensland to inspire, enrich and empower communities.’
The Brickman – Ryan McNaught
Ryan ‘The Brickman’ McNaught is a LEGO® Certified Professional, one of only 14 in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2019 he joined Channel Nine’s new hit TV show LEGO Masters Australia as the main competition judge alongside host Hamish Blake. Originally from the corporate world, a Chief Information Officer, Ryan’s creativity was limited and bound by the constraints of his job, however, the ability to express and create through a unique medium offered him an amazing opportunity; the ability to create something that both children and adults alike can be inspired by.
The Brickman Team
The Brickman is a team of skilled LEGO® artists and craftspeople led by Ryan McNaught, aka “The Brickman”. Ryan and his team have built some of the world’s largest and most detailed LEGO® models, and are responsible for building models for LEGO® offices around the world. Having produced four touring exhibitions and hundreds of models for museums, galleries and shopping locations globally, the Brickman team have garnered many prestigious awards for their works. Brickman maintains a unique style, which makes their creations some of the best and most recognisable in the world. The Brickman website: 