Here’s how much it would cost to build life-size LEGO versions of world landmarks

From the Taj Mahal to the Statue of Liberty, here’s how much it would cost to build life-size LEGO versions of the world’s most iconic landmarks.

Most of us are probably content with the miniaturised display models on offer through the LEGO Architecture line, if only for the sake of space, budget, and the practicality of owning a life-size LEGO Eiffel Tower. But just for kicks, toy review website TheToyZone has done the maths on how many bricks you’d need to build 1:1 replicas of a selection of famous buildings – and how much they’d cost.

The site’s quest started with recreating images of the landmarks in question in BrickLink’s Studio program, which is about to replace LEGO Digital Designer as the LEGO Group’s official building software. Studio allowed TheToyZone to not only calculate the number of bricks required, but – thanks to its integration with BrickLink’s marketplace – how much they’d cost to order.

The team behind the project then used a specialised program to recreate each of the landmarks and buildings as renders, comparing the original images to the LEGO versions. Dive in below to check out a handful of the most impressive…

5 – The Taj Mahal

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You’d need a whopping 35,007,786,500 LEGO bricks (that’s more than 35 billion, to be sure) to recreate the Taj Mahal in 1:1 scale. That’s a fair few more than the 5,923 pieces in 10256 Taj Mahal, and way more than in its Architecture equivalent, the 2,022-piece 21056 Taj Mahal. And it would be similarly more expensive, at £1,629,103,866 in the UK and $2,186,819,336 in the US.

4 – The Eiffel Tower

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If LEGO Architecture’s 21019 The Eiffel Tower doesn’t quite cut the mustard for you, there’s always 2007’s much bigger 10181 Eiffel Tower. And while it’s now quite expensive on the aftermarket – you’re talking £2,100+ for the 3,428-piece set – it’s still cheap next to the cost of building a life-size replica. You’d need to pony up £51,368,926,319 / $68,954,818,440 for 276,715,798,464 bricks for the real deal.

3 – The Colosseum

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At 9,036 pieces, 10276 Colosseum is currently the third-biggest LEGO set of all time (by part count). But at 154,377,762,712 bricks, a life-size version of the Roman landmark would probably take the crown. It would come in at £5,722,113,720 / $7,687,964,746, though, which is likely a little less manageable than the official model’s price tag of £439.99 / $549.99.

2 – Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

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10253 Big Ben came in surprisingly cheap at £179.99 / $249.99 for 4,163 pieces in 2016, but we can’t really say the same about a life-size replica. You’re talking a cool £9,243,968,635 / $12,408,594,545 for the 206,636,181,818 bricks required to assemble it, although there would apparently only be 256 types of part among them. That’s probably going to be quite a dull build.

1 – The Statue of Liberty

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If the rest of the sets on this list feel a bit beyond your budget ­– perhaps you’ve only got hundreds of millions in spare change, rather than billions – you could always put together your very own life-size Statue of Liberty. According to TheToyZone, it would cost just(!) £867,462,944 / $1,164,434,496 to do so, requiring 16,351,963,706 bricks. Then you’d just need somewhere to put it…

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