The Lego Vatican
June 7 through October 2018
The Jubilee Museum is proud to showcase this incredible model of St. Peter’s Basilica this summer as we celebrate our 20th Anniversary.
FAST FACTS:
- Father Bob Simon, the artist behind the LEGO® brick Vatican Model, has been a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania for 27 years.
- On September 21, 2014, Fr. Simon laid the first bricks of his Vatican model. This is his first large-scale build.
- He was inspired to begin this project in preparation and celebration of the Pastoral Visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia.
- His finished construction was displayed at Brickfair 2015 in Virginia, where it won both “Best Historical” and “Public Favorite” “Brickees” prizes.
- Setup of the model takes up to two days, with three people working on the structure’s 25 different sections.
- The Piazza has over 44,000 cobblestones sitting atop 12,000 tan tiles. There are over 6,000 round bricks that make up the columns of the Colonnade.
- The model is worth $10,000 in LEGO® bricks and took over 10 months to build.
- The structure is about 14’ x 7’ x 7’ and weighs about 100 pounds.
- All of the pieces are certified LEGO® bricks—none of which were altered in any way.
- Simon tapped into his creativity to repurpose LEGO® pieces in unconventional ways, such as using the LEGO® life preserver pieces as the windows dotting the Vatican’s iconic dome.
- A custom LEGO® Minifigure of Fr. Simon can found near the obelisk, poised in contemplation of the splendor of the Vatican. He has visited the Vatican five times