SPQR - Imperial Rome, por Rocco Buttliere (Flickr)

E o que fazer com algum tempo livre e 66 mil peças LEGO? Uma representação da Roma Antiga em micro escala. Esta verdadeira obra de arte é da autoria do AFOL Rocco Buttliere que construiu esta maquete em LEGO para o Museu da Imaginação em São Paulo, para estar exposto permanentemente nas suas instalações.

O display mede cerca de 2,31 x 1,37 metros, conta com cerca 66 mil peças, e entre o tempo gasto para o seu design e montagem, foram necessárias mais de 500 horas divididas por 2 meses.

Vale bem a pena ver todas as fotografias na galeria do autor , pois todos elas contêm informações detalhadas sobre os vários edifícios da cidade, desde o coliseu, aos vários templos, estátuas e diversos edifícios.

Espreitem também a galeria de Rocco para outras construções espectaculares!

Fica aqui uma breve descrição do Display:


SPQR - Imperial Rome(circa 320 CE under Constantine I) 

 Commission: Museu da Imaginação, São Paulo (permanent exhibition) 

 Parts: ~66,000 

 Scale: 1:650 

 Dimensions: 91in x 54in (231cm x 137cm) 

 Design Time: 300+ hours in 32 days 

 Build Time: 220+ hours in 24 days 

On this day in 69 CE, the accomplished military commander Vespasian entered Rome to claim the title of Imperator, establishing the Flavian Dynasty and overseeing the largest empire the world had ever seen. At the time, the city of Rome was the preeminent bustling metropolis of the ancient world and was home to more than a million people. It would be nearly a half-century before the Empire reached its greatest territorial extents under Trajan I in 117 CE, spanning the entire Mediterranean from modern-day Iberia to Iraq and Scotland to Egypt. As decorated as Vespasian became, and as incredibly vast as the empire was for its time, both came from humble beginnings. Vespasian was the first Roman Emperor to ascend from the level of commoner through a series of increasing senatorial ranks coupled masterfully with a distinguished military career. Similarly, Rome was once a lowly tribal settlement atop the Capitoline Hill which, over the centuries, grew to cover seven hills and served as the seat of the Roman Republic, and later the vast Roman Empire.

After being commissioned by the Museu da Imaginação to design and build ‘a large, 1m x 2m historical layout of Ancient Rome’ with little more to go off than said prompt, I immediately dove headfirst into the incredibly vast rabbit hole that is Ancient Roman history. Quite early on, I realized the approach to designing something so mindbogglingly vast in such a relatively small window of time would critically depend on having a strict schedule of target deadlines by which to design compartmentalized stages of the overall layout. After all, considering Vespasian or the Roman Empire at the heights of their power would be such an inconceivable notion without having also studied the respective contexts and timeline of events leading to each of their zeniths.

For this reason, the design of the layout was subdivided into eight regional stages and executed over the course of about five weeks between September and November 2019. Not only did this subdivision ease my sleepless nights of nearly being overwhelmed by the commitment, it was also my crossing-the-Rubicon moment when I truly considered this to be something I could commit to accomplishing within the timeframe, without sacrificing any of my signature design rigor. It has always been a creative dream of mine to design a vast, comprehensive city layout in which individual landmarks can be appreciated as integral parts of a much broader historical and cultural landscape. That is why I am immensely grateful to the Museu da Imaginação for commissioning this piece. Not only has it been an incredibly humbling and educational collaboration for myself, but I can rest more easily knowing our efforts will inspire countless guests and museum patrons for years to come. No time to rest on my laurels though! The question now is, “What comes after the Eternal City?”