LEGO Mona Lisa, other world icons land in Manila

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December 17, 2025 | 4:34pm

MANILA, Philippines — LEGO creations of famous world landmarks and icons have landed in Manila, built from colorful bricks for Filipinos to admire and possibly replicate.

The structures make up the "Brickman Wonders of the World" exhibit running at The Space at Solaire until February 8 next year.

The exhibit is the brainchild of Ryan McNaught, the eponymous Brickman who is one of several LEGO Certified Professionals in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere.

McNaught and his team of LEGO brick artists spent hours building the exhibit's pieces, some of them composed more than 164,000 pieces.

Stand out pieces are the towering Statue of David and the Mona Lisa right across from it, made from 33,473 and 27,011 LEGO bricks, respectively, and both taking over 100 hours to make.

Familiar world landmarks include India's Taj Mahal, Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa, Singapore's Merlion, and United States locations the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building (with King Kong).

Some unexpected marvels are the Himeji Castle of Japan, the Ryugyong Hotel of North Korea, the hanging International Space Station, the sprawling Tokyo Subway System, the Flying Scotsman train, and the sinking RHS Titanic.

The most intricate among those is the RHS Titanic as it took 240 hours to piece together almost 134,000 LEGO bricks. The Flying Scotsman did use more bricks at 164,611, but its 217-hour build time is less than the 225 hours of the Tokyo Subway System.

The longest build time, however, is the 248 hours it took to make a LEGO replica of a Concorde Air France aircraft.

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