Japan has one surefire sign of spring every year: the bright, gorgeous petals of the cherry blossom trees floating in the air. It may be part of their beauty that the cherry blossom blooms are short-lived, but you can’t help wishing they would stay around a little bit longer. So why not build an everlasting tree out of thousands of LEGO bricks? That’s just what they did at LEGOLAND Japan in Nagoya to celebrate their first year of operation, and the result is stunning.
The tree was originally put together by builders in the Czech Republic. It took them over 6,500 hours to design and build it, and then it was shipped to Nagoya, Japan to be assembled. With over 7,000 pounds of LEGO bricks at stake, it took a team of workers and some heavy lifting machinery to carefully put the pieces into place.
The 881,470-brick sculpture stands over 14 feet tall and almost five feet wide, officially setting the Guinness World Record for “largest LEGO brick cherry blossom tree.” (I bet you can find some nice shade under those plastic branches on a sunny spring afternoon.) The colorful brick tree even comes complete with working lanterns—also made of LEGO bricks—that glitter in the cool evenings.
Just like the fleeting beauty of real cherry blossom trees, this one isn’t quite everlasting. It’s only on display until May 9, but perhaps that (very specific) world record will last forever.
What LEGO world record do you dream of breaking? Tell us in the comments.
Images: LEGO Group / Guinness Book of World Records
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