Artist Creating LEGO Patchwork On Buildings All Around The World

LEGO: A Timeless Toy

LEGO has and will probably always be a favourite toy for kids and even for grown-ups too. It started out as simple plastic building blocks that eventually lead to movies and cartoons. The Lego Group began with Ole Kirk Christiansen who was a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Kirk started creating wooden toys in 1932 and then in 1934, he started the company called Lego, which comes from the Danish phrase leg godt which means play well. Lego expanded by 1947 by making new plastic blocks. Then by 1949 Lego was making the plastic interlocking bricks and started calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". They were made using an injection-moulding machine that it purchased using cellulose acetate. But by 1958 the material that is still used today was developed. It's a material called ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer that made the blocks lock together easier and come apart easier as well. The designs and colours changed over the years and started to include cars, figurines, trees, and other items that would bring the buildings built with the LEGO blocks to life. Now, there are LEGO collections for almost every popular movie or cartoon and some are even collector's items which can end up being very valuable. There are Star Wars themed LEGO sets, and even Harry Potter themed sets too.

Reimagining Urban Spaces with LEGO

It turns out building models isn't the only thing these LEGO blocks are good for. One artist named Jan Vormann has come up with a completely original idea for using these blocks, and it's attracting a lot of positive attention in neighbourhoods all over the world. Jan mixes art and architecture by repairing old cracks in buildings using LEGO blocks. Not only does it look really cool, but it also helps the building and brings communities together. The multicoloured repairs he's making are called Dispatchwork, and he has a website and an Instagram page dedicated to his endeavours. The website he created shows people where he's added LEGO pieces to buildings and where he will be headed to next so people in the area can join in on the fun. He shows on his Instagram photos of people coming out to assemble the LEGO with him, and it looks like it would be a lot of fun. On the website he also provides the story behind each place and why he chose it. He even gave a bag of LEGO blocks to someone he knew that was travelling to South Kurdistan, who offered to find a place for the LEGO to go. This time the LEGO ended up going to a place that was distraught by violence bringing new life to the area. He's been doing this since 2007, and he's brought together a ton of people to join in on the artwork creating a worldwide collaboration.

Creative Collaborations and Unique Designs

It's a patchwork of beautiful colours and designs that sometimes includes little doorways or windows to make it look like a mini house within the large building. It's really interesting to see the designs that he and the other participants come up with and each project is different from the next because of the different cracks and voids in the walls they repair. For the most part, the pieces of LEGO are inserted into the cracks and then built upon however the specific area allows. For some small cracks, only a few pieces of LEGO can be placed, while other areas can have a huge chunk of LEGOs in them. There is some strategy that goes into these works of art, which makes it even more fun and exciting and a great way to bring people together to have conversation and inspire creativity.