Designing murals with LEGO bricks basically a form of pixel art, which is an aesthetic that I have always loved. Much of my artwork focuses on urbanism and livable cities, so it should come as no surprise that I am also a fan of retro city-builder games like SimCity and newer ones like Cities Skylines.
I thought it would be fun to create a SimCity-inspired mural with LEGO pieces. This mural depicts a fictional city, it’s not a real place, but it draws inspiration from a lot of my life.
Amongst lots of details, I was sure to include the trams and bikes of my new home, Amsterdam, and the brownstones of New York where I lived for nearly 20 years. And of course I had to include the famous pink brownstone from my old neighborhood in Brooklyn.
This mural began as an original digital illustration drawn as pixel art and then built with over 27,000 LEGO® pieces. The piece measures 45″ x 60″ (150 x 115cm).
Build it yourself!
You can build this too! My traveling exhibition Brick Planet features an interactive art station with a paint-by-number style canvas where you and other visitors can help build a new copy of this mural and several others, for everyone to enjoy! Check to see if Brick Planet is visiting your city and come by and have fun!
