When I was a kid, I used to play with Legos all the time. They were easily my favorite toy. So, of course, when I read about this project in the evening paper, I had to go participate. For those who don’t read Norwegian, the project was an attempt to involve Oslo’s residents in the decision about what to build at Tullinløkka, a very central yet completely undeveloped square in the National Theater area of Oslo. Someone came up with the idea to dump three tons of white legos in the middle of Tullinløkka and invite anyone and everyone to build their idea of how Tullinløkka should be developed. So the legos sat out there for two weeks, rain or shine.

When Johannes and I got there, we saw a massive pile of legos surrounded by a table covered with amazing creations.

There was just a ton of stuff, stuff I’d never dreamed of making in my years as a Lego architect. I was simply dumbfounded by some of the things people had built. Round things, things with arches.

In front of the table was a massive heap of white legos, with probably twenty people of all ages sitting atop it, all concentratedly building.

Johannes and I settled at a table—walking on the legos felt really uncomfortable, almost sacreligious to me. We collected handfuls of legos from the ground, brought them to the table, and started building.

I built our apartment.

Mostly all I built with legos when I was a kid was houses. That interest was what fueled my first serious interest in a career–architecture.

Johannes built a tower.

It was sprinkling when we arrived, and the reain got worse as we built. A few people left, but not many. We stayed a while so Johannes could finish his tower. The legos had been dirty from being trod upon when we got there; now the rain was turning them muddy.
White might not have been the best choice of color for this project.

We actually didn’t realize that the purpose of the activity was to build our idea of a development project for Tullinløkka until we were about to leave. I think a lot of people probably didn’t realize the exhibition’s purpose. Regardless, it was an incredibly fun thing to do–sitting out in the rain in central Oslo, building away to my heart’s content with dirty, chewed-up legos that had probably been in the hands of and under the feet of hundreds. Not your everyday experience! This is the kind of thing that makes living in a city so very very cool.

I hope. It required changing one line in the CSS. Why didn’t I do it sooner? Durrrh. Anyway, let me know if something isn’t working.