Ryan McNaught has probably laid more bricks than any builder in the country. As one of only 12 certified Lego professionals around the world, he’s a unique breed of labourer.
For the first time, McNaught’s collection of more than 60 Lego structures is on display in Sydney. The Brickman Experience at the Town Hall contains close to six million individual bricks.
Among the models making their debut are a two-meter Space Shuttle Discovery suspended from the roof, an iconic Manly ferry and a scene from the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. There will also be a bisected Opera House, complete with miniature Lego Peter Allen, including maracas and a Hawaiian shirt.
They will join McNaught’s record-breaking works, which have been flown in from around the globe, including a 480-kilogram model of The Lego Movie logo, the world’s largest Lego flower and a bright red Lego Ferrari.
“I can’t afford the real thing, so I had to build a Lego one,” he says.
Melbourne-based McNaught, 42, was a brick buff until he was 13 – “then sport took over”. But he fell back into the Legosphere after writing software for Lego Mindstorms, which is used to teach children about robotics. One of his twin seven-year-old sons has inherited the Lego love, but the other “thinks it’s way uncool”.
