Hello Goodbye to a World

In our twee retrospective, did you sense something missing? There was one builder absent. In a few respects, he missed the boat entirely, but he warrants a close, exclusive look.

 

Markus Rollbühler is a master of scale. His "Of Sails and Spires" uses the tiniest parts to evoke the grandest edifices. A lighthouse in six pieces, a castle in perhaps thirty, a tall ship in just four. For Markus, each piece must contain multitudes.

 

Here, macro to focus on micro.  A figure in the foreground right next to a catapult on a spoon. This is a builder understanding that the medium is photography, not LEGO.

Did he build an entire plane just for effect? This balloon ascends to another level with the filagree using a part we don't even recognize.

Rollbühler is not always as fleeting as photography, some stand-outs are grounded. They would be more twee at two-thirds the size, but he uses each square inch to full effect, each piece as carefully chosen as in the micro-builds.

 

We end with something we were convinced could never be captured in LEGO, but now is.