Saturday, 25 April 2009

• About Legodelphia: "a mini philly"
  

  I laid the first bricks of Legodelphia long before we even were calling it "Legodelphia." I had been playing around with my Legos when I was bored one day, and started stacking the bricks to make some little buildings. It hit me that day, and I started thinking "what if I built a little town?"
  
  So I kept building. First it was crude, then it became more specific. I built a little conglomeration of buildings and called it "Philadelphia." It looked like it could've been any city, really.
  
  But I kept going, and weeks passed. Soon my dad bought me a bigger baseplate so I could keep on going with my project and build the city bigger. I redid a lot of the buildings and made them look more like the tallest ones in the Philly skyline, with special emphasis on the most famous twin towers of Liberty Place. The skyline was taking shape. One night I worked for hours on the kitchen table with it. When my parents came home and saw me, they were completely flabbergasted with all I had done. Knowing it was mimicking Philadelphia, my dad fondly started calling the model Legodelphia.

  After a few months, my work seemed nearly finished. The model was so large that I had to sit it on my bed during the day, and move it to the floor when I slept at night. Normally after finishing a Lego creation, I would just scrap  it and plan to build something else; but I felt this creation was special. I decided I wanted to get my project out of my room and on display so more people could see what  I created.
  
  
  Before the Legodelphia model arrived to the prestigious Franklin Institute in August of 2005, it was displayed in the lobby of 1650 Arch Street, home of the Environmental Protection Agency (a.k.a. my mom's office building) in Center City. By the window, all of the passersby could see it, giving Legodelphia its big debut. While it was on display, I called local museums, including the visitors center of Philadelphia, hoping I could find a permanent place for my model. When I got in touch with the Franklin Institute, their curator, Mr. John Alviti, was very interested. He stopped by one day and saw the model in the window of 1650 Arch. He made it clear that the Franklin Institute did indeed want to display my model.
  
  After packing the model into two large boxes, my mom and I actually carried it to the museum, walking in the summer heat down the Ben Franklin Parkway. When we arrived at the museum, I assembled it in the display case that Mr. Alviti had selected. I was 16 years old at the time, and back then, Legodelphia was hardly half the size it is today. It was like a prototype of what currently stands at the museum. Only 30" long and 15" wide, it was placed in the main entrance gallery of the museum, where it got lots of attention. There the model would remain for nearly a year.
  
  The following summer, (2006) I came back to the museum. That is when I presented to the Franklin some additions to the model. I had made the Cira Center and Amtrak's 30th Street Station.
  
  This was the first time that any medium other than Legos were used for the model. I incorporated tiny, shiny beads to emulate the glassy effect on the side of the Cira Centre, and patriotic little cloth flags on straight pins made the flagpoles in front of the columned Amtrak station. When the piece arrived at the museum, the curator told me that the next thing he wanted me to build was the Ben Franklin Bridge.
  

  
  

  
  

  August 2006 was a very busy month. Almost immediately after I built and delivered the train station, I started working on the requested bridge. And at the same time, I was also writing a paper and preparing a thorough presentation for my senior graduation project. The subject I chose for my project had to be a significant experience or achievement, so, naturally I chose to use Legodelphia as my topic. At the end of the month I conducted my presentation. To "wow" my audience, I brought along the finished Benjamin Franklin Bridge, a sneak-peek of the next addition to my Lego model. The judges rating my presentation were totally blown away with what I'd done, so much that they shared my Power Point slideshow with several other staff members once they were finished hearing other students' presentations. My school principal was so impressed; he actually got in contact with a LEGO Group public representative, one who was very interested in seeing this entire city made of Legos.
  
  That's when the unthinkable happened. I was contacted by this Lego representative, and he wanted me to participate in Lego's cross-country promotion of  "Imagination Days." When the event arrived to Philadelphia, I was to be their "master builder" for the event, and Legodelphia was going to be specifically featured.
  

  LEGO provided me with the bricks I used to build a dramatic recreation of Philadelphia's City Hall building. That piece, along with Legodelphia, were taken to Fox29 Studios where they were televised to promote Lego's "Imagination Day" event, soon to arrive in Philly.
  
  

  
  

  
  

  That October, Lego's "Imagination Day" for Philadelphia was held at a toy store called O'Doodles, located in Chestnut Hill . Tons of  kids and their parents arrived to play with Lego bricks that were provided, and I got to speak to them and their parents about my artwork. Another fellow Lego artist and I were there to show everyone how a big imagination can lead to amazing things. 

   

  Because Legodelphia was temporarily removed from the Franklin Institute for all the events, I had the opportunity to incorporate even more additions to the model before returning it to the museum. The idea appealed to the curator, who showed me a much larger display case on the ground floor of the museum which would house the newly expanded Legodelphia. With measuring tape in hand, he and I took the dimensions. After that, I went home and began building.
  
  I spent weeks adding onto my model in my basement, which I promised would be completed before Thanksgiving. It was horribly meticulous work, I won't lie. With maps and photos and Legos all over the basement floor, there were moments when I asked myself if I could really do this. Adding to the frustration, I found that there were some pieces I needed that Lego didn't even manufacture anymore. The stress and pressure of getting my project done in time started to mount.

  
  

  When I was done, however, Legodelphia far exceeded all of my expectations. After laying the final brick, the "mini Philly," had been completely expanded and, measuring an impressive 4 3/4ft by 2 1/2 ft, and 10" tall, it went from Campell's Field in New Jersey all the way across Center City to 30th Street Station. From the south, it went from Independence Hall northward to Temple University. It was incredible. I included a slew of additional landmarks, including the Gallery at Market East and the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Parkway (Benjamin Franklin Parkway). Another major change was the color of City Hall, which I transformed from McDonald's Yellow to pure white. At the end of the Parkway stood my Museum of Art, which really was the finishing touch on the new Legodelphia.
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  The next challenge was figuring out how on earth we were going to get this huge piece to the museum. After much pondering, I decided to fit it into two large boxes which I got from Wawa (I used to work there, and finally I'm thanking them) and carefully I collapsed the model and situated the sections inside each. I actually had to cut pieces of cardboard to stack the model in three layers within each box. On the outside of each box, a flyer proudly announced "Legodelphia, a mini Philly."
  

  

  
  

  The ride to the museum that October day was nerve wrecking. I had scheduled a meeting with the curator, and I was so nervous about the safety of my precious model during its transporting and assembly. All my hard work and patience sat in two boxes in the back of the car, headed for Center City. In the end, the installation of the project to the museum was a huge success, and that's where it rests today.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  As for my City Hall model I made for LEGO's Imagination Day, the Franklin Institute was not as interested. I entered it in a contest conducted by Philadelphia's City Hall, but to no avail. It currently resides in a box in my basement, as I contemplate keeping it, scrapping it to build something else, or to auction it on eBay.
  

  
  

  
  In March of 2008, Legodelphia was updated one more time when I decided to improve the look of its building #17: Comcast Center. It was a very special day for me, because it was a magnificent way to "top off" my model (both literally and figuratively), which had never before been declared "finished." Besides that, I was never entirely satisfied with the original Comcast Center I designed. The original, added to Legodelphia long before the groundbreaking of the real Comcast Center, was playfully composed of yellow bricks and bore a sticker reading "TV" upon its crown as a reference to Comcast. The model skyscraper was intended as a prediction or vision of how the future skyline would look with what at that time was no more than talk in the media of a new tower that was planned to be built in Philly. With the Comcast Center today standing as tall and as real as ever, it was nice to finally make the change in my Legodelphia, honoring the building which has inevitably seized the title as the city's tallest.
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Links redirect users to my favorite website, Phillyskyline.com, home of the photography used for the construction of Legodelphia.   

  
  
             
  
  

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