Jan Vormann ‘Patches’ Up Old Buildings with Lego Bricks

There is an infinite number of ways that Lego toys can be arranged. Artists have taken the popular Danish toy to surprising places, pushing it beyond the boundary of what “toys” are, as we’ve seen here on our blog. But one artist Jan Vormann based in Berlin, Germany has taken Lego to the streets. Some have called it “Lego bombing”, but Vormann prefers to describe his work as “patchwork”, a project that he is bringing around the world.

“I really like to work with objects that everybody has a preconceived image of. The good thing with playful elements in the work is that people get attracted by it, rather than repulsed. Lego is a material which people like, and they are more to likely to start interacting with me,” Vormann says.

It looks like a lot of fun, but Vormann’s work has serious undertones. Using the tiny colorful blocks, he “patches” or fills in holes in war racked landmarks and other buildings to renew them with some happiness. “Most of the times, I try to find location which have a historical background or a political meaning,” he explains. One of these places is at the back of the Berlin-Grunewald train station in Berlin, a place where Jews were deported before World War 2 ended.

“I don’t want to add visually dark and heavy objects. My idea to use these plastic construction bricks was to add a kind of colorful part of contemporary times; a material that everybody worldwide has the same feeling on it, he says. “For me, it’s a kind of a hopeful thing to see that we share this common culture.”