The Life-Sized City Blog

When you live in a home with over 20 kg of Lego, using it comes naturally. I noticed five years ago that I didn't have a lot of Lego bicycles. I soon discovered that they are rather hard to come by, despite the fact that Lego is, of course, Danish. In America, for example, the quickest way to get a Lego bicycle is buy the ambulance set. Seriously. Selling fear of cycling in a Lego box . But back in 2011 I wanted to do a rendition of the Copenhagen rush hour in Lego bicycles. I stripmined eBay in four countries buying bikes and mini-figures that resembled normal people. Finally, shot a series of photos like the one up top. My inspiration also had a root at the Legoland theme park. I spotted this cyclist, above, from the age before the mini figure, which makes them awesome. From the age before rubber tires and asphalt, too, it would seem - so even more respect. Looking around the internet I discovered that there are/were sets that featured Lego bicycles, as you can see above....

If we lived in Toy-penhagen, this is what this rush hour would look like. Citizen Cyclists riding through the city. Man in a suit complete with mobile. Supermum with her kid and her coffee. Flowers decorating a bike. The elderly (with baguettes), a doctor, you name it. Businessman with briefcase. 50% + female ridership. Etc. One-handed riding. Yep... it's all there. All we need is for LEGO to make stilettos and mini-skirts if we really want to make a true representation of Copenhageners on their bicycles, but hey. I have also reproduced one of my favourite bicycle posters in Lego. Based on the 1922 poster from Peugeot. Bicycles on top of the world. Felix and I have also played around with Lego as urban infill, if you fancy a look . If you haven't spotted the Copenhagenize Design Company christmas card on Twitter or our Facebook page , here it is. Have a lovely holiday season and a wonderful new year.

It's not just about bicycles as transport. The city needs lots of important things. More colour. More citizen interaction. More cinemas, for example. So Felix and I decided to do something about it. There was the perfect little hole in the wall across the street from us, in a doorway. Last December, we decided that a bit of urban infill would be just the ticket. We agreed that we needed a cinema closer to home. We measured the hole and went home to build our Lego Cinema, returning to glue it in place. The kid taking the city back. Because we can. I recalled that a few years ago the Danish Architecture Center (I think) put up tables on City Hall Square along with a fantastic amount of white Lego bricks. Passersby stopped up and built whatever their heart desired. The Felix and I spent a good couple of hours there. Continuing on the LEGO theme, Felix and I made this chess set five years ago. We still have it and use it.

You'd expect LEGO, being Danish, to have featured the bicycle amongst their products. There are no bicycles in my boy's 10 kg pile of LEGO - a potpourri of Lego spanning 35 years and including the new stuff, my childhood lego and my little brothers, too - but I've seen them before. So a little googling brought me to this nerdy website listing sets that include LEGO bicycles. I slapped a number of the photos into the graphic above and included a couple of images I found on the internet. My favourite is at bottom left. A petrol station shop. A cyclist pedals calmly away carrying an ice cream in one hand and fresh flowers in her panniers. She is glancing over at a motorist who can't control his vehicle and who, it appears, forgot his change. I like the contrast. Above there is Café Corner, with a bike parked out front, of course. Two of the shots feature merchandising for the German Team Telekom from back in 2000. The Tour de France is [has been] such a major cultural eve...