LEGO Concert Hall – Liszt Academy rebuilt for children

With the cooperation Liszt Academy and LEGO Hungary Budapest's landmark concert palace and university, Liszt Academy was recreated using 20000 bricks. The plastic palace finished in 120 hours was not built to become a showpiece, children play with it during junior-programmes, called Liszt Kidz Academy.

Photo: Gábor Fuszek

Using the dozens of figures supplied for the project children can populate the Grand Hall of Liszt Academy with artists and an audience. Playing with the custom-built instruments – the tuba consists of a drinking glass and a megaphone - they can learn about the setup of an orchestra or a quartet and get familiar with way a concert hall works. The miniature palace proved so popular that it will be displayed in the foyer of its original for a month form 15 March so that adults can also have a glimpse of it.

Photo: József Csapó Wágner

"Our purpose with Liszt Kidz Academy is to educate our future audience, to make them capable of enjoying and appreciating quality music, be it classical, folk, jazz or even pop. With the creation of the Academy-model, we also wanted to show the children as well as the general public that the Liszt Academy is an exciting venue to visit. There is no true greatness without playfulness" – says Imre Szabó Stein, communications director of Liszt Academy.

Photo: Sándor Benkő

The idea of Liszt Kidz Academy and the model-Academy comes from young musicologist Gergely Fazekas, a lecturer at the institution and host of the children-programmes. He also managed to find the right person for the task, Balázs Dóczy, a professional LEGO-builder. After gaining the support of LEGO Hungary and the endorsement of Liszt Academy the project could get underway in the end of 2013. Balázs Dóczy designed  the model palace using an engineering programme, and he perfected the plans during the building-phase. The whole process was captured using time-lapse photography, the resulting video is available on youtube in English language.