Jaw-dropping model of Rome took 107,000 LEGO bricks to build!

Rocco Buttliere has been astounding us for years with his massive microscale LEGO creations. Being no stranger to rendering massive landmarks and vast ancient cities in brick form, he has just released a new expansion to his fantastic SPQR diorama of the ancient Roman capital (the right half of the build in the photo below). This new section of the Eternal City – built at 1:650 scale – took over 107,000 bricks and several thousand hours spread over two and a half years to build, but it was well worth the wait! Lets take a tour of some of the ancient landmarks, shall we?

The Imperial Forum dominates the local cityscape. From bottom left to top right we have: the temple of Trajan and Plotina, Trajan’s Column, Trajan’s Forum, and the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Agustus. We can take a closer look at each of them.

The temple is decorated with a golden faucet. Some of the buildings in the background have lavender bars in their arched windows and the colorful structure in the back left has a scala foam-holder as an entrance.

The Forum of Trajan features micro statues a-plenty (special mention to the ones with their heads inside clips; it’s a great idea) and is decorated richly with golden crowns. There’s also old hinges in the walls, and a golden messenger bag in the center statue.

The temple of Mars Ultor in Trajan’s forum is decorated with minifigure hands, a wand, and turban pins stolen from the local genie.

Finally we’ll step away from the imperial fora to look at a gladiatorial arena in the Ludus Magna neighborhood. The gallery of this ancient stadium is made variously from telescopes, roller skates, and printed Minecraft parts.

What an amazing achievement by Rocco! The wait was well worth it; the details and dedication to authenticity are unmatched. Do make sure to check out his Flickr for plenty more photos and renders of different parts of the city. There’s so much more than we couldn’t cover here. Like I said earlier, this build dovetails with his previous SPQR build, so hopefully there will be more amazing additions in the future!

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