Lego versions of world-famous skyscrapers on display in Regina

Travelling to other countries and places has become less common due to the pandemic, butpeople in Regina can visit some of the world's most famous landmarks closer to home and made of a common household toy.

The Saskatchewan Science Centre's upcoming exhibition, calledTowers of Tomorrow,features 20 of the world's most famous skyscrapers constructed out of Lego on a 1:200 scale.

Famous landmarksrepresented in the exhibit include Toronto's CN Tower, New York's Empire State Buildingand Kuala Lumpur's twin Petronas Towers.

The Lego towers needed to be strong enough to be taken apart, put into cratesand shipped all over the world.Ryan McNaught, an Australian certified Lego professional, was the lead builder on the project.

The installation of the giant Lego creations at the Science Centre in Regina, however, was overseen by Robin Sather, a Lego certified professional based in Abbotsford, B.C.

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Even though you can't travel the world right now, you can still explore some of the most famous buildings...on a 1:200 scale. The Lego display includes 20 of the tallest towers.

"This display took about 2,400 hours of people working in studios and making all kinds of stuff designing them, putting them together," Sather said.

"We have almost 600,000 bricks that went into building all of these."

One of the buildings, the Shanghai Tower, has more than 100,000 Lego pieces in that building alone, according to Sather. He also said that the towers are built out of regular Lego bricks.

"Theoretically, if you could find this many bricks, you could build this all yourselfno special bricks, no special colours."

Science Centre vice-president Ryan Holota is looking forward to the installation for several reasons. This isthe first exhibit people will be able to see on the second floor since it was closed last March, and there willalso be a hands-on component to the towers exhibit.

"We have more than 200,000 Lego pieces for our visitors to build with that are disinfected between each use," he said.

"People are going to be able to come with their groups and be able to build their own creations."

Holota said that he considers Lego to be one of the best STEM (science, technoloy, engineering and mathematics)tools out there for anyone between the ages of three to 99 and up.

"We know it's going to inspire people to go home and to build with their own Lego. Maybe they'll try to build some Regina landmarks, or recreate some of these towers," he said.

A sneak preview of the exhibit for members of the Science Centre runs from March 26-28, and it opens to the general public on April 2.