In celebration of their 2017 theme “The Nation We Build Together,” the National Museum of American History in Washington DC has unveiled a replica of the Statue of Liberty made entirely from “Lego” bricks. Located in the building’s first-floor lobby and standing at over nine feet tall, the statue played a major role in the Smithsonian’s 4th of July festivities and now serves as an impressive, fun doorman that visitors can snap a quick picture with.

The model was designed and assembled by 49-year-old Erik Varszegi, one of four “master” Lego builders in the United States. It took the specialist 70 hours just to plan out the 125-pound (without its internal steel frame) statue’s construction ? the actual building process required two extra sets of hands and a whopping 292 hours of labor! In total, 25,375 bricks in five different colors were used to complete the project. While most of Lady Liberty’s body is sand green, her base is sand yellow, and the flame on her torch boasts a warm golden hue. Plus, a few reddish and brown blocks were used to make up the observation windows on her crown.
According to Varszegi, who has spent the last 22 years building Lego models, the biggest challenge he faced during this project was faithfully recreating the back of the statue. He explains, “If I had to pick a most difficult part of the model, I?d have to say the whole backside of her. Very little in the way of photographs ...