Museum Recreates Ancient Roman City Using Lego Blocks
The ancient Roman city of Pompeii was recently recreated at Sydney University’s Nicholson Museum… using 190,000 lego blocks! It is the largest model of the ancient city ever constructed out of Lego blocks. Within the model’s makeup, There is a mix of ancient and modern elements, displaying Pompeii as it was in 79AD, as it was in the 1700s, and as it is today.
The Nicholson Museum, with collections of artifacts from the Mediterranean region, Egypt and the Middle East, is a place where visitors can expect to see Greek vases, Egyptian sculpture and ceramic sherds from Jericho. In the last few years, the museum has commissioned professional Lego builder Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught to recreate three ancient sites, all made from Lego. The joy of the model was its ability to contrast the old with the new. Half the model featured the amphitheatre in antiquity; the other half featured the building in ruins with Lego modern tourists.
The purpose of this was to attract a new audience to the museum space and to demonstrate the importance of fun in a museum context. I think it is safe to say, this experiment was successful.
