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Lego fans can look forward to three exciting games with the colourful blocks
by Michelle Brändle
The wise man of Lego bricks: "What falls down, I pick up immediately."
23.11.2020
Translation: machine translated
He doesn't have a heart of bricks, but he does have a heart for bricks: Andreas Reikowski is a convinced AFOL, an "Adult Fan of Lego". However, the 57-year-old from Stuttgart in Swabia prefers to call himself a "Lego artist" and is known as "Zypper" in the German Lego scene.
He uses commercially available plastic pieces to put together impressive structures, which he shows at exhibitions - all of which are the product of his own imagination. The founder of the Lego club "Schwabenstein 2 x 4" would never pick up a set of building instructions: too boring. A conversation with him about a passion that sometimes leaves no stone unturned
Say, Mr Reikowski, isn't Lego actually a children's toy?
Andreas Reikowski: Well... Lego bricks are particularly suitable for supporting children's imaginations because of their endless possibilities. However, as this process does not necessarily have to end when children grow up, there are plenty of adults who continue to enjoy building and playing with the colourful bricks from Denmark - with all common sense, of course.
What makes Lego so fascinating for you?
In contrast to the saying "less is more", the opposite is the case with Lego: here, more really is more. In realisation, my work is only limited by the stock of bricks - not in imagination.
Where does this fascination come from?
From the idea of the fundamental combinability of all stones - with those of their own kind and with all others - which has remained unbreakable to this day.
How much time do you spend with Lego?
Can you still remember your first Lego set?
Kit 605, the black taxi from 1971. I was eight at the time and loved these 14 pieces.
What do you feel when you see a Lego brick? What goes on inside you?
Do I recognise it? Do I have it? Can I use it for one of my projects? Can it do more than it's supposed to do according to TLC, The Lego Company?
Estimated: How many Lego bricks do you own?
And how many sets do you own?
Only the few sets that I have either received as gifts at exhibitions, for
club merits or that I have received as some kind of premium. I don't care about sets and can't remember buying a set at full price in the shop in recent years
What is your favourite thing to build
?
Basically anything that hasn't been done before. I also like abstract, round structures and circular MOCs. "MOC" stands for "My Own Creation", my self-designed Lego model. It delights me when I can create soft, bionic textures from the angular and naturally stubborn material.
What is a particularly appealing challenge for you?
To build a semi-transparent, open cube measuring four by four metres at man height live in public during a Lego fan exhibition as part of an all-day performance with music and in costume.
When are your fingers itching?
After a day at the construction table, when I've spent hours placing and pressing brick upon brick. It's not so much an itch as an echo of the constant, thousandfold stress exerted on the fingertips. When the callus grows back, so to speak.
Which building are you particularly proud of?
I am proud of every Lego creation from my workshop when I manage to create a moment of honest fascination, a moment of pause and realisation of the previously unseen, the never-before-experienced, especially at exhibitions with predominantly young visitors. But this feeling is the exception rather than the rule. These moments are all the more precious.
Which of your buildings has been the largest so far?
By far the largest in terms of surface area: "9x9 on new grey - Show your face", which is made up of 100
square of 48 building panels laid side by side. Commercially: "the shooting tower and its epigones".
And what was your tallest building?
"The great white marble tower". If I want to put the top on, I have to climb onto a chair or call our club chairman over: It's 2.10 metres tall. It takes exactly 27 seconds for a marble to click through the tower from full height and finally hit the Darth Vader figure on the head.
Your favourite structure?
I still have to build that.
I've been a journalist for 20 years and have been editor of a knowledge magazine, head of copy at a news magazine and editor-in-chief of a youth magazine, among other things. For me, topics and texts can't be varied and colorful enough. Preferably something different, new and exciting every day. But the people around me - the people who share my table, bed and bathroom - would like to stay the same for the rest of my life.
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