I recently was able to stop at the Wiblingen Monastery in Ulm-Wiblingen, Germany. It’s about halfway between the cities of Stuttgart and Munich. According to Google, it’s a “Baroque Benedictine monastery, founded in 1093 & expanded in 1714, featuring a rococo library.” We stopped in and saw the cool library and toured the museum. Unexpectedly, we ventured into one of the rooms and saw some LEGO bricks. WOOHOO!!! And here’s what we saw…
Here’s a picture of the actual building. One of the first things you notice is the two towers in the brick version that aren’t in the actual building. The brick builders decided to add on the towers that were never completed in their version. Other than that, it looks like they were pretty accurate in building their version.
Source: https://www.kloster-wiblingen.de/en/home#impression-images-22
So the details (based on a fact sheet placed near the build in English and a few other languages)…
-Built by Burkhard Siemoneit and Stephan Schumann
-It took ~2 years to build (mostly weekend time)
-It contains over 800,00 bricks
-It weighs around 350 kg or over 770 lbs
-It is 3.5 m (11.48 ft) long by 2.6 m (8.53 ft) wide
-The towers are 1.8 m (5.91 ft) high
-It was estimated to cost over 40,000€ or ~$43,600
-The build was finished on 20 July 2017
Here is a scaled down version of the build.
I’ve included a number of pictures for a few reasons. First, you can get some closer views of the details of the build. Second, you can see some of the fun Easter Eggs they threw into the build.
A wedding being held outside
A minifigure walking on the roof, Superman and Superwoman.
Batman climbing up (or down) the side of the tower
A few minifigure “statues”
Some storks on the roof and if you look closely, some burglars in the background on the roof.
Bart Simpson on the roof of the tower.
Nearby to the monastery was a giant festival scene. It was chuck full of details with food trucks, a band, bakers making a cake, and a bunch of vendors. I included just a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.
As an American, I think we need to have more giant displays at random locations like I have seen in Europe. I’m a huge fan of seeing these displays and I can’t wait to see more. If you know of any I should check out, let me know. In the meantime, happy building!