Who doesn’t love Legos, right? Ah, the possibilities. Many of us remember putting together something that resembled our childhood home or an X-wing Fighter or a castle.
Well, that wasn’t good enough for Paul M.L. Janssen, an associate professor in Ohio State University’s department of physiology and cell biology. No, Janssen, whose day-to-day involves studying the effects of myocardial relaxation, decided to go a step further in his off hours and construct a 1:100 scale modelof Ohio Stadium, aka The Horseshoe. The best part was, Janssen had to start completely from square one:
To plan the project, Janssen studied stadium measurements and satellite images, often taking photos of the press box or other details during football games. (He didn’t really understand the sport at first but is now a fan and a season-ticket holder.)
He spent more than three years acquiring the necessary Legos, often improvising: Dragon horns from a Lego castle kit are part of the rotunda decor; chrome truck parts serve as pipes extending from the stadium bathrooms.
Whereas Ohio Stadium cost around $1.5 million to build in 1922 (almost $20 million in today’s dollars) the Lego replica has an estimated Lego value approaching $75,000. (Janssen isn’t even sure of that, as he procured many of the bricks on trading sites like BrickLink.) That wasn’t a bad way to go, considering it eventually took 1 million bricks to construct this monstrosity. And even though some 103,000 people can fit inside the actual Ohio Stadium, the Legofied version can only fit some 6,000 Lego-size football fans inside its confines.
Surely, if we’re lucky, Janssen’s Lego skills will give rise to other would-be Legotects constructing their own recreations of existing stadiums. Personally, we’d love to see a scale model of AT&T Park, complete with Lego Coke bottle in left-center field and Lego McCovey Cove beyond the right field arcade. Or maybe an updated Lego Yankee Stadium, based on the present-day structure.
And hey, if this cell biology thing doesn’t pan out for Janssen, you might be able to nab him as your full-time Lego adviser. The man obviously knows what he’s doing.
