Gartenschau Kaiserslautern - 2021 Visit

Sadly, I had to leave Germany and Europe. It was a blast living there even if part of it ended up being during a pandemic. Thankfully, I made it to the Gartenschau Kaiserslautern one more time before I left and got to see the LEGO display.

The entrance to the park is in a facility that they used to use for ice skating in the winter. Now you pay the entrance fee there, they sell LEGO sets there, and for the first time they have a LEGO display available. This year it was something I had not seen them display before. They built Fritz-Walter-Stadion - home of 1. FC Kaiserslautern or for those of you not familiar, home to their local football club (what Americans refer to as soccer).

Instead of putting a ton of pictures up, you should have the ability to swipe or click on arrows to go through the pictures in the slide show. If it doesn’t work right, let me know.

The next batch of pictures are right as you enter the LEGO display. It includes:
-A case with large scale minifigures with masks and various MOCs
-A large 2x4 red brick (made of ~24,000 bricks), a globe, and a large scale minifigure
-Some LEGO© House exclusives and a brick build LEGO logo
-A close up on the Lego logo
-Numerous Technic car sets
-Two pictures of a European street by Brick-Fans Rhein-Main including a building from the Old City in Budapest (picture #7 if you are counting)
-A display of London Buses, some race cars, some trains, and some MOCs of VW Beetles
-Some close ups of the VW Beetles

I probably should have gotten someone to stand next to this build of the Statue of Liberty to show it’s size. It is 2 meters tall maybe? An impressive build…

The lighting in the display area is not the best for pictures as you can see by these next to. The first one (on the left) is a Minecraft scene. It pours into a US Western scene. The western scene has been around, but the Minecraft portion is new this year from what I can recall.

Some Elves and Castle sets…

The picture I posted of Das Hambacher Schloss doesn’t do it justice. I think the actual castle is the upper left portion of the picture. You can look this one up, but it’s a castle near the city of Neustadt in Germany. In 1832, there was a protest that took place there and it is now considered the birthplace of democracy in Germany. This build is approximately 82,000 pieces and I think I saw it last year too.

Kleinkastell Pohl was a small fort used in Roman times that was located in Germany. Search this one online for more details, but it’s a great re-creation in brick form.

Here’s a pretty impressive Ninjago scene for those of you who are fans of that genre.

The builders merged the Ninjago display into a display of some of the Chinese Festival Theme sets along with a few MOCs. I like how they did this almost seamlessly.

The City scene they have there is always impressive and they evolve the scene every year with changes. You can click through the pictures I took and then go back to some of the previous years to see if you spot any differences.

Another large scale build of an individual LEGO piece.

2 MOCs… the first looks like it is part of a GBC where the robots pass the balls down the line. The other is a fun display of some collectible minifigures. Now sure who or what “TA” is.

The Empire State Building in a much larger scale than the Architecture set.

Here are two more cases with some more great MOCs and sets inside.

Here is a fun brick built rubber duck.

I’ve seen these before, but here’s the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate. You can see more of them from my visit last year.

I don’t remember this one from last year or I didn’t take a picture of it, but here’s a version of the Berlin Wall.

This one was there last year, but here’s Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof (Frankfurt Train Station).

Star Wars and Space were mixed into the same room this year. Instead of individual displays, they had a large display of various space vehicles in the same room. It was hard to pick everything out with all that was on display, but it is definitely an impressive collection. Click through to see below.

I gush over this one ever year, but the Cologne Cathedral build is phenomenal! If you’re going to visit this display, this is the one you have to take some time to check out. It’s very impressive!

Here are some vignettes of super heroes and a few others along with some animals.

A few close ups of the vignettes.

Die Sendung mit der Maus literally translates to “the show with the mouse.” This is a children’s program that has been on in Germany since 1971.

Last up are a few sets where they either added to them, modified them, or changed them completely into something else.

There’s a lot more there, but I didn’t take pictures of everything since some of them are unchanged from previous years. Still great builds, but you can see them in posts of previous visits I made there.

Hope you enjoyed my visits to various places in Europe to show some bricks off. I’ll miss it there, but I hope to go back some day. Hoping the Gartenschau Kaiserslautern will still have a LEGO display to check out when I go.

Visiting an Open LEGO® Display in 2020 - Gartenschau - Kaiserslautern, Germany

The Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern was closed in early 2020 as COVID-19 first hit Germany. Thankfully, it re-opened and I finally was able to get there to see the updated LEGO® display. So we donned our masks and went in…

Before moving on, here are the links to the previous visits I’ve had to the Gartenschau:
2018, 2019 (part 1), 2019 (part 2)

Here’s the welcome sign. It says die große LEGO® ausstellung (the large LEGO® display) and it is hosted by Lauter Steine E.V. If you live locally, I believe it closes on 31 October and then re-opens in April.

The start of the display had a few cases with some MOCs. Some of the minifigures had masks added to them.

Next up, a large MOC of a 2x4 red brick. Then there was another case with a few MOCs and some sets.

In that case (shown above) were a few MOCs designed by Daniel Krentz. He was the designer of the #375 LEGO Classic Yellow Castle (shown below). Daniel passed away in 2016. There were a few MOCs from Daniel in the case purchased during a Fairy Bricks fundraiser.

The first picture looks like a Native American totem pole only out of bricks and in various build styles.

Next is a case with some train MOCs and some Formula 1 race car MOCs. The bottom has the VW Bus set with some VW MOC. Further down is a space shuttle.

There was no sign next to this one, but it looks like a recreation of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. It’s a very impressive build!

I apologize for the reflection and lighting. The displays have plexiglass in front of them (smart move) and the lighting is not meant for cameras.

This MOC has been there previously and is a western US scene from the 1800s or so. I like the use of the wallpaper background incorporated with the brick background.

I wasn’t as big of a Castle fan as a kid so I’m not sure if these next pictures are sets or MOCs, but they are in the Castle theme.

I didn’t see a sign next to this one, but perhaps this is a MOC of an actual castle in Germany? The German flag is on top of the main structure so maybe.

This MOC was there last year and it’s a build of the electricity plant of the city of Kaiserslautern in 1894. I like the hot air balloon to mix things up a bit from the industrial look. I’m also a fan of the tall smoke stack they build. I’m curious if it is brick only or if there is a supporting structure inside.

Here’s an impressive build of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. If you look closely, you an see some fun details like Santa Claus.

Here is another Berlin landmark. The Reichstag where the German Parliament meets. I saw this build at a show last year. The new addition this time is the park nearby with the LEGO logo in brick flower form.

Here is a MOC of the Fruchthalle in Kaiserslautern. It’s a music venue for performances. The MOC is built from ~80,000 bricks. It took about a year to build and was built in 2016. I’ll let you read the description in German in the picture below.

I’m not sure if this MOC is new or just hasn’t been displayed in the past few years, but I found it to be the most impressive one there this year. The Frankfurt train station. First picture is the sign on the display letting you know what it is.

Here’s the full display… or at least most of it. I like how they added in the mirrors so you could see the trains. I didn’t get any close ups of the trains, but they had a mix of sets (the Disney train) and a few MOC trains.

A few more pictures of the station. I think the main building is impressive. The curve they were able to recreate in brick is really impressive.

Added into the scene were many of the modular buildings. I didn’t see the Cafe Corner or Green Grocer, but they have the City Hall and a few of the less recent buildings.

Nearby were a few buildings that are re-creations of actual buildings in the Frankfurt area.

I don’t know if this is of an actual train station or not. If you zoom in on the sign, Reiichelsheim (Odenwald) is an actual place. Not sure if they just wanted the sign on the station or not.

The large recreation of the brick fence behind the train station is cool!

I saw these MOCs of Venetian buildings last fall. You can see a few more pictures of them here.

A Ninjago scene.

The city scene has remained a constant over the past few years, but every year they make some changes and throw in some new things. Like last year, they have a fair, a rural area with farms, a European style city center walking area, and a more downtown/urban area. This year included more lights to include LEDs in the modular buildings, a subway type train route (the trains weren’t running while we were there), and a new train station to name a few.

I’m trying out a new (to me) web feature. You should be able to click an arrow or swipe on your phone/tablet to advance through the city scene pictures. Let me know in the comments if it doesn’t work.

I believe this scene was there in previous years. It’s a European style town/city next to hill/mountain. I’m going to guess Bavaria… maybe? The detailing on this one is very impressive and I like the colors too.

An imperial ship from the Pirate’s theme and then some recreations from JK Brickworks.

Some brick built birds which appear to be pretty close to scale. They are designed by Felix Jaensch. You can see his work here on Flickr.

The Dom…

Here’s the Cologne Cathedral again. It’s been there every year that I have visited and I still find it to be an incredible MOC.

Here’s the room dedicated to the space themes (should be able to click through the pictures). There are Ice Planet, M-Tron, Futuron, a large MOC of a ship, and some MOCs in the various space theme styles. This room is awesome! It makes me want to build some MOCs to add to them. I was a huge M-Tron fan and still have my sets.

Here are some architecture themed sets and MOCs. The Statue of Liberty (#21042-1), a MOC of Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a version of the Taj Mahal, and a few churches.

Various MOCs on display.

Star Wars™ sets have to make an appearance. Here are a few of the UCS sets on display.

A tall brick skyscraper. The top is lit up with LEDs.

Here is the logo for SteinHelden.de. This is a store located on site and they have an online store (only ships within Germany). It loosely translates to “brick heroes” and the business is set up to employ the disabled. A number of the workers are in wheel chairs or have other disabilities. It’s a cool concept!

Here is a microscale representation of the city of Kaiserslautern. Specifically it is the Rathaus (City Hall) and the Pfaltztheater.

A larger scale version of the Burj Khalifa.

A large scene of ancient Egypt.

The western US circa 1800s.

Last display case with some modified sets to include some Ideas sets, the James Bond Car, and some Harry Potter sets. There are also some fighter jet and biplane MOCs on the bottom row.

Another awesome display this year. So glad I was able to visit despite all of the COVID-19 closures. Thanks to the team who puts this amazing exhibit on! Hope you enjoyed my picture tour.

Happy building!

Summer 2019 Update - LUG Display - Gartenschau Kaiserslautern, Germany

The good news is that I have a lot of content to share. The bad news is that I don’t have the time to post it all like I want so this post is delayed by about a month. I went to the Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern, Germany back in April 2019 (Initial post here) and got to go back in June 2019. I am finally getting around to posting about my trip there. Sorry for the delay. I hope my pictures do the display justice.

First off is Notre Dame Cathedral and a model of the famous church in Paris, France. The card by the model roughly translates to:

“The Notre Dame, one of the most beautiful churches in France. This beautiful church was built by Ingo Bramigke in Wuppertal. It is partially expanded inside. This beautiful model is made of many rare colors that are hard to find today.
The model was built in 2004-2006 and was built in many hundreds of hours.”

It says the model has around 100,000 pieces. I like how Santa Claus is hanging out on the outside of the church.

Next is a modification of set #21310-1: Old Fishing Store from the Ideas line. You can see my review for the original model here. This was built in 2018 by Klaus Krämer. He did a great job bringing this set further to life. The tree is a nice touch.

Here are some aircraft ranging from jet fighters to biplanes. I didn’t get a picture of a card so I’m not sure who made them or of the specifics behind them.

Aragog’s Lair is from Harry Potter and is a set. You can see my review of #75950-1 here. This MOC is substantially built up and looks more realistic than the small set from LEGO. I like all of the plant pieces in different colors that add to the realism. The builder’s name is Benjamin Kolb and this MOC was made in 2018.

Here we have Ancient Rome right near Notre Dame. You can see the Colosseum and some other ancient looking buildings. There are a ton of minifigures involved too. I only got one picture so you can’t see all of the details… sorry.

I’m not really sure what these are… looks like a giant totem pole type house and maybe everyone was given a set and told to build something and those are what they built. I don’t know…

No label on this one and I’m sorry the glass in front made the picture a little blurry. This looks like a manor or small castle in Germany or France somewhere.

Here are some birds by builder Felix Jaensch. His Flickr stream is here. He has some impressive brick art work on his page and it looks like he sells some of his builds too.

The top is a penguin, a Minion, and a dragon. The penguin and dragon are probably from something, but I’m not sure what.

The bottom build is titled Sperrmüll which Google Translate says is “Bulky Waste.” The card lists the builder’s name as Brixe and says the build was from 2017.

This is a train station in Reichelsheim Odenwald. There wasn’t a card nearby so I’m not sure what time period the build is from. Reichelsheim is about an hour’s drive south of Frankfurt, Germany for those that were wondering.

The display has a huge city scene and I have posted numerous pictures before so I didn’t add a ton of the ones that have been seen before. A few points of interest that I caught this time:

-The bridge with the lime green arch is made up of 2x4 plates. They are all slightly disconnected at an angle to develop the arch. A clever idea that was probably pretty challenging to keep together.

-It’s hard to see in the lighting, but I thought the glass bridge was pretty clever.

-Finally I included a picture of a street scene that includes some of the modular sets and some MOCs. The White Lion is a pub in the UK (I think). You can see a few of the modular sets next to it.

This was not there the last time I was at the display. The U.S. Capitol in Washington D. C. The builder was Gerlach Dominik and it was build between 2004 and 2007 with an estimated 1,236,000 bricks. Wow! Very impressive with a lot of fun details between a class trip from Hogwarts to a car accident. Take a look at some of the details if you zoom in on the pictures.

“This model is private property”

SWK E-Werk was built in 2019. It took 3 months to put together and is made up of 225,000 pieces. The card translates to (using Google Translate):

“Electricity plant of the city of Kaiserslautern in 1894.

On the 25th of February 1894, the city council of Kaiserslautern agrees to build an e-factory based on the plans of Oscar von Miller. Just two months later, the construction of the Karcherstrasse building (near the railway viaduct) began.

The e-werk went into operation on 1 September 1894 for the first time. It was the 4th Electricity Plant in the Palatinate and one of the first 140 works in the former German Reich.

Initially, the power plant only supplied the electricity for the lighting of the station forecourt. Later, even simple citizens could buy electricity, but at the time they had hardly any electric appliances.”

Here is a MOC of the Kaiserslautern Rathaus or City Hall building. Next to the large MOC is an instruction booklet for a smaller MOC with 719 pieces.

Last 2 pictures. First is 42055-1 Lego Technic Bucket Wheel Excavator and next is the Empire State building.

Hope you enjoyed my brief photo tour!

Gartenschau Kaiserslautern, Germany - Back with Another Great LEGO Display in 2019

In case you missed it, I visited the Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern, Germany back in 2018. It just opened again for the season back on 1 April 2019 and I had the opportunity to go for a visit this past weekend. The ads for the park highlighted another big LEGO based display, but I wasn’t sure if it was just the same display from 2018 or not. I was pleasantly surprised that Lauter Steine eV put together another awesome display for 2019. There were some returning displays and items, but there were also some brand new ones. I was only able to get a few pictures, but I plan to go back soon and will post more. Here are a few highlights.

Some brick built, larger scale minifigures greet you as you walk in…

One of the new displays is of the Pfalztheater-Kaiserslautern (link should take you to a Google Images page for the theater).

There was a classic space focused display last year with a big monorail. While they still have pieces of classic space, there are some changes this year. There is a Ice Planet themed section. The light in the room makes it hard to take photos, but it does make the orange and white of the Ice Planet theme look pretty cool.

Some classic space and M-Tron sets.

I was a huge M-Tron fan as a kid. I had a bunch of the sets and thought the magnets were great. Here’s an awesome M-Tron space station.

Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! (#70816-1) from the first LEGO Movie makes an appearance.

As a kid, I saved up and purchased the Mega Core Magnetizer (#6989-1). Still a great set!

The first case has some larger scale, brick built versions of various pieces along with the brick art underneath. The next picture is a working minifigure head designed out of bricks clock.

The next two picture are various architecture themed type sets. There are some actual LEGO sets mixed in, but many are fan built sets in the format of LEGO Architecture. There are also a few larger scale buildings.

I took a picture of this display and the sign that goes with it, but the sign that goes with it is all in German and I haven’t translated it yet. So enjoy the picture and I’ll update this post with info on this display once I translate what this is.

26 April 2019: Okay, I had time to use Google Translate… long story short, this is a model of a power plant built in Germany in 1894.

I included a picture of the info sheet so you can try and translate yourself, but this display is of a section of Kaiserslautern that is being re-developed. The buildings are models of what the final area will look like.

A returning display from 2018 is the Cologne Cathedral. I talked about it a bit more during my 2018 post. My family was able to visit Cologne in December 2018 for the Christmas Market. We got to see the cathedral while there. It is incredible on the outside and on the inside! If you are ever there, definitely check it out. Here is the picture I took of the LEGO brick built version and then a picture of the actual cathedral that I took from the nearby Christmas Market.

I visited with my kiddos so I had to rush through the displays and get the the play area that they have. I didn’t get the pictures that I wanted so I’ll have to go back (oh darn!). Last two I’ll post for now… one is an Elves themed display and the other is a cool looking building that I’ll need to get a picture of the sign and translate. Sorry.

I have never been to a LEGO Fan Convention, but I imagine that going through Gartenschau Kaiserslautern is what it’s like. A ton of cool displays to look at everywhere. Well done Lauter Steine eV! It’s another incredible display this year and they did a phenomenal job putting it all together! If you’re ever in the area, you definitely need to check it out.

Happy building!

A Visit to Gartenschau Kaiserslautern and the Awesome LEGO Display (Summer 2018)

As an American AFOL living in Europe, I had to store some of my collection back in the USA and I have relied on reading fan sites and listening to the Bricks King podcast to stay in tune with the hobby.  My NLS and I decided to take our kiddos to a park and I ended up hitting the jackpot.  The Gartenschau (Google Translate says it means "garden show”) Kaiserslautern is what my kids refer to as the dinosaur park.  It has lots of great garden areas surrounded by large sculptures of dinosaurs.  It also has a lot of playground equipment for kids and a bunch of other things to do.  Here is the link to the site if you want more info (it's in German, but Google Chrome asks if I want to translate it).

As we walked into the park, we saw a sign advertising a LEGO display so we went into the building where it was located.  And then I started to drool...  Wow!  It is advertised as creations and builds from builders from Germany and Luxembourg and boy is it ever.  There were glass cases stacked with MOCs and sets from LEGO.  Then there were huge display areas with some giant creations.  At the end was a kid play area with LEGO System bricks, DUPLO, and some large toddler friendly rubberized LEGO bricks.  To top it off, there was a LEGO store with some sets on sale (that wasn't open when I was there).  The display is on site until the garden closes at the end of October 2018 (not sure it comes back regularly or not).  If you're in the area, definitely check it out.  If not, here are a few pictures of what is there.  The lighting is not super great for pictures so my phone didn't capture the best shots for a website (sorry).  

You'll notice in the one case on the top left there is a brick build sign that says Lauter Steine EV.  This is a LUG in the local Kaiserslautern area that is connected to a LUG in Luxembourg (per LEGO's web site).  

A few more display cases... I won't show them all, but you get the idea.  

There were also a few MOCs of existing buildings.  This first one is of St. Michael's Basilica in Mondsee, Austria.  Here's a link to an Austrian web site with a picture of it.  As an AFOL, I wish they had more info about the builder, some of the techniques used to build it, total brick count, etc.  You know, all those geeky AFOL things that we're into.  I realize the display is meant for non-AFOLs so it's all good.

I'm not an expert of the area yet, but I'll find out where these buildings are and post some actual pictures or links.

The Statue of Liberty at around 6 feet tall.  I left the case next to it so you could get an idea of the size.  I also threw a picture in of the train case next to it just because I'm a big LEGO train fan.

Ok... I was not expecting to round the corner and see this on display.  WOW!!!!!  The Cologne Cathedral looks phenomenal.  If you believe the Wiki page I found, it took 2 years and 900,000 bricks to build.  Another site I saw said it was more like 500,000  If anyone can find other references, please let me know.  I could spend a whole post talking about this build, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  If you want to see more, definitely Google it.  There are tons of additional photos and some videos if you want to see more detail and close ups (with better lighting).

The display also includes a few dioramas. Here’s a picture of the pod racing scene from Star Wars episode one..

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but here’s the fight scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi on the moon of Endor.

This picture doesn’t capture the whole scene either, but here is a LEGO Space display.

And of course, they have a giant LEGO city. Here are only a few pictures of the many I took. It’s quite an impressive scene with a farm area, a fairground, a train, a giant town square, construction, and plenty of buildings ranging from MOCs to some of the modular buildings from the Creator Expert line.

I’m hoping they do this setup again next year because it’s awesome! Thanks to my new neighbors in Europe for putting this together!