Surrey Now (article): Lego Goes Mythic at Museum

The VLC’s Myths and Muses display at the Surrey Museum was recently written up by the Surrey Now. The original article can be found here:

http://www.thenownewspaper.com/travel/Lego+goes+mythic+museum/6886359/story.html

Lego Goes Mythic at Museum

By Jacob Zinn, Surrey Now July 5, 2012

Lego: Myths and Muses is open at Surrey Museum until Sept. 15. The exhibit is made of 150,000 to 200,000 Lego pieces spread across such models as the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Photograph by: KEVIN HILL , Surrey NOW

 

The Surrey Museum & Archives, in partnership with the Vancouver Lego Club, opened the Lego: Myths and Muses exhibit on Saturday in Cloverdale.

The display features monuments of Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology and history, including the Walls of Troy, the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Lost city of Atlantis. Twentytwo members of the club spent countless hours piecing the original exhibit together brick by brick.

“There were different discussions about whether or not we would do all Greek or go even broader, try and cover Norse and Asian mythologies,” said David Gagnon, 28, of the Vancouver Lego Club. “We sort of narrowed it down to Mediterranean mythology.”

The exhibit, open until Sept. 15, is made of 150,000 to 200,000 Lego pieces spread across such models as the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The level of detail includes tiny gladiators in Rome’s Colosseum and hundreds of miniature togas wrapped around Greek Lego figures.

Some displays were collaborative efforts, including Mount Olympus, which was built in two halves by two members and put together.

“There’s about 8,000 pieces in the Walls of Troy, and so it’s definitely a little bit bigger than your average Lego set,” said Gagnon.

“The biggest Lego set to date has about 5,000 pieces.”

VLC and the Surrey Museum & Archives first partnered in 2003 when a city staffer asked the club to build a display detailing the history of railroads in the Fraser Valley.

This exhibit was a challenge as Lego hasn’t released a Mediterranean line. The group gathered pieces from their personal sets and websites like BrickLink.

Gagnon is a lifetime user of Lego and has a collection of about 400,000 pieces stored throughout his home. “I definitely started building young and I can remember the stuff that I was building somewhere around three and four, vaguely,” he said.

While children are the exhibit’s top visitors, Gagnon said Lego reached generations of fans through its 63-year existence.

“It’s both adults and kids who enjoy the show,” he said. “There’s so many adults who will come out and see it and fall in love with Lego all over again.”

The museum is open Tuesdays to Fridays 9: 30 a.m. to 5: 30 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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