Calgary man builds scale replica of The Bow building from 8,500 Lego pieces

Roy Nelson is selling a scale replica of The Bow, Calgary's iconic office tower, constructed from roughly 8,500 pieces of Lego.

It's a massive, one-metre tall construction that took him more than five years to complete.

Nelson is part of an adult Lego-building group that focuses on landmark Calgary buildings, and said he was inspired by the challenge of the Bow tower's crescent shape. 

"A big part of it is the Bow building and Lego you would not think go together at all. Lego is a very square, perpendicular product, and the Bow is the exact opposite of that. It is not square," Nelson told CBC's Russell Bowers on Daybreak Alberta.

Nelson said he was struck by an image of The Bow against the skyline.

"I was walking out of City Hall and I looked up at The Bow. It was like a moment I had in The Lego Movie, where the characters just see the proportions of pieces and how they might go together," he said. "I had a flash on a particular Lego window piece and how I can combine that to create the Bow building. And that got me on this five-year adventure of making this, what I consider a giant piece of iconic Calgary art, almost."

Nelson said Lego has come a long way and presents untold opportunities for complex projects.

"Lego is a medium that you can do so many different things with, and it's very forgiving, you can make a mistake and easily take it apart. And when you get tired of stuff, you can take it apart and build something else," he said.

"We all think about building those simple houses as children, usually multi-coloured, colours not lined up. But now techniques that have been developed, the pieces that have come out, you can do anything with, you can build anything you want to."

2,000 pieces are windows

Nelson said the replica Bow tower took about 8,500 pieces of Lego, 2,000 of which are windows.

"Some of the parts are easy to count, like the glass windows in it. But there's a lot of buried pieces in there, little plates that tie things together that are very difficult to estimate," he said.

Nelson is an analyst with the Calgary Fire Department, so the project was done in his spare time. 

"It really was the challenge. You lock on to a plan, an idea, and you keep trying," he said. 

"In the beginning, a lot of the journey was about 'How do I get enough pieces even to prototype it?'

"So there was that initial challenge of the design and prototyping, and then 'How many pieces do I need?' And calculating how many one-by-two plates I need to build the thing and finish it off."

Nelson said that as the project went on, he found himself noticing new architectural details about the building.

"You fall in love with a piece of architecture and then you just start noticing the fine details and deciding if you can incorporate those into your model," he said. "I remember actually being at a wedding downtown in a park, and during the wedding I was staring up at the Bow building and I realized that on the very top level, there's actually a skylight," he said. "I'm like, 'Oh, no, how am I going to incorporate the skylight into the building?'"

Nelson said one of the biggest tasks is translating the dimensions of a real building into Lego dimensions, and then finding the perfect Lego pieces.

"There was a particular piece, a one-by-two brick Lego piece that I could not get in glass at the time. And so I had to buy a whole bunch of plates to stack them up to make a bigger piece," he said. "And then, sure enough, halfway through the thing, they brought out that piece. So I was able to get them in quantity. And so I spent literally hours, you know, poking out the windows, putting a new piece back in."

Nelson said there are no shortage of Lego enthusiasts and clubs around Calgary. As well as the group that focuses on Calgary architecture, he is part of two other groups, a Southern Alberta Lego Users group, and the Calgary Lego Train Club.

He said they do train shows — long tables with entire landscapes for the trains to run through — and community shows. Currently, one group is working on a display to brighten up the empty storefront windows of New Horizons Mall.

"One of the most fun things I like doing at shows is actually to stand behind the audience and listen to their comments, and see the details that they see when they're looking at this, and the excitement," he said. "And then, of course, the kids who run up to our Lego displays … it certainly echoes the excitement we had as kids around Lego."

Nelson has two sons, ages 13 and 11, and says they both helped him with this project over the years, as well as having their own Lego interests.

"They have way too much Lego," he said with a laugh. "Actually, as a parent, one of the most satisfying things I heard is when my son stepped on a piece of Lego and hurt himself — only because finally he understands why we want them to pick it up."

Meanwhile, with the five-year project complete, Nelson said he couldn't bear to take The Bow apart. He's hoping to find a buyer for the piece and has it listed at $4,000 on Facebook Marketplace. The materials are worth about $2,200.

The Lego creation is now on display until Dec. 14 at the Brick Bin, a Lego store at 2906 Centre St. N.E.

With files from Daybreak Alberta.