street art toronto

Someone in Toronto fixed a broken brick wall with tiny little LEGOs

Toronto's street art comes in several forms. And typically, LEGO are just play bricks, but someone in the city recently installed them into an actual brick wall.

Martin Reis actually first created pieces like this LEGO installation over a decade ago, but just got back into it with an installation at Bloor and Dufferin where the old high school is currently undergoing construction.

He's inspired by artist Jan Vormann's "Dispatchwork," which similarly places plastic toy bricks in among actual architecture and crumbling facades.

Way back in 2011, he installed this kind of work in busted old tree planters in Toronto. It actually wasn't far away, near Bloor and Lansdowne.

The process is true guerrilla art, even though it can take up to three hours to install one of these intricate pieces. He used about 600 LEGO blocks to complete this most recent project.

"All the installs are on public property and I don't ask for permission," Reis tells blogTO.

"Bloor C.I. is a very historic and integral part of the Bloordale community, and as such, I wanted to bring a smile to its former students and the community which will be undergoing a big transition in the next couple of years. Take a piece of the city back with colour."

Though it definitely brought joy to people, the current installation actually had to be moved several times and has now disappeared entirely.

"I built it three times at that location. The first install was behind the construction fence on a side wall facing west, but it got spray-painted over by graffiti artist PEACHIE immediately," says Reis.

"I moved to the main wall on Bloor the following day and salvaged it by flipping it over and adding new pieces to fit. That one lasted a few days before getting knocked out of the wall. The third build completed last Friday was in the same location as the second one."

However, Reis is someone to keep an eye on if you're interested in seeing more of his LEGO art: he has plans to install multiple public LEGO pieces in the downtown core of Toronto sometime around June.

Lead photo by

Shari Kasman


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