Discworld's Tower of Art

Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series has any number of memorable locations. However, none seem to stand out in the mind’s eye quite like the Tower of Art at Unseen University. To celebrate one of the most beloved book series in the world, I created a Lego model of the Tower of Art.

While the description of the Tower of Art is generally kept vague throughout the series to allow the reader to create their own version, this 1527-piece model tries to capture the elements that are described in the books. Since the Tower of Art is located in the grimy city of Ank-Morpork, the model was built using dark grey pieces to capture the soot-stained effect one would expect a building to have in such a dirty city. However, the books also describe the tower as having patchwork repairs over the years to replace bricks crumbling from natural wear-and-tear and numerous magical episodes. To represent the repairs, I used different colored gray tiles, giving the tower a more patchwork design.

Along with the patchwork repair jobs, the Tower of Art is described as having endured numerous magical episodes that have left their mark on the tower, including areas that have melted and re-crystalized. For this reason, I added black tiles to represent scorch marks and translucent pieces to represent areas that have recrystallized.

Finally, the books describe the tower as having a gnarled look with a forest having evolved at the top. So, I built the model to look like a gnarled tree with branching structures. The forest at the top is intended to have a more alien-look that one would expect from plants evolving in an area with a high magical field.

Why did I build this? I love the Discworld books and I wanted to create an iconic structure from the novels. I believe that the Tower of Art would make a great Lego set because there are a lot of Discworld fans who would like build and display a Lego model from this beloved book series.