Brick Wonders at The Harley Gallery

Guest blog by Carl Gibson - Gallery Co-ordinator at The Harley Gallery.

In 2015 The Harley Gallery welcomed Warren Elsmore’s LEGO® based exhibition ‘Brick City’, an exhibition of famous architecture from around the world, created entirely from LEGO® bricks. This was a break from the norm for The Harley Gallery, used to showing the likes of Sir Peter Blake and Grayson Perry, to name but a few.

The experiment was a success and the exhibition drew huge crowds daily with the final tally breaking all records for visitor numbers to a single exhibition at the gallery. Many people came back more than once, and brought children and grandchildren too.

One of that exhibition’s biggest fans was myself. Always being a lifelong ‘AFOL’ (adult fan of LEGO®) that was going through a stage known as  ‘The Dark Ages’, a period of time that you lose interest with LEGO®, and indeed didn’t practice any more.

Coming to work every day and seeing this exhibition re-kindled my childhood love of LEGO® and has since sparked a resurgence in my own LEGO® purchases, much to the dismay of my wife but with much excitement from my three and a half year old twin girls.

This month, The Harley Gallery will welcome back Warren Elsmore with this second LEGO® exhibition ‘Brick Wonders’, which showcases his talents in creating the seven ancient wonders of the world, modern, natural and also famous inventions - past and present.

In 2015 the pièce de résistance was a minifig scale version of St. Pancras Station, which was indeed awe-inspiring to see. This year we will be able to feast our eyes upon a minifig scale ‘Brickport’- an airport covering over eight square meters which features a fully lit and animated runway. Eek!

Other highlights include the Great Pyramids of Giza. Straight away, you can see the enormity of the task that the builders faced when building the pyramids all those years ago, it’s very thought-provoking. The minifig scale Old London Bridge, with its clever use of colour and parts to portray the ‘old’ look and feel, and modern inventions like ‘Modern Medicine’ with a great little model of an operating theatre, are must-sees. The model of the natural wonder ‘The African Savannah’ cleverly incorporates LEGO® Duplo animals to help craft a striking size difference to minifig scale.

Overall, this exhibition is a must see for LEGO® fans of all-ages – there is something for the whole family to enjoy. Best of all it’s FREE entry!

The exhibition starts on the 21^st January and will be showing until 2^nd April.