JUNE 26 (Reuters) — It was a meeting of the smallest and the tallest in Italy’s Milan as thousands of children got together to try and beat the world record for the tallest structure built with Lego bricks.
Little ones of all ages joined volunteers at the five-day event outside Milan’s World Expo site to try to break the previous Guinness World record of 34,76 meters.
Organizers had prepared some 600,000 Lego bricks for the dream task.
While reaching the target height of 35 meters was a tall order, building the tower itself came naturally to the children, explained Lego Italy’s Marketing Director Camillo Mazzola.
“It is the first thing that a child who has Lego bricks in hand does, even at the age of two when they are not capable of constructing things, they put one over another and build a tower. So, today we go from a non-professional tower built by a child, a thing of beauty to him, to the super tower of records,” he said.
Mazzola said the idea originated from 1988 when the first record-high structure was built in the United Kingdom. Since then, it has been challenged periodically by Lego enthusiasts around the world.
Mazzola stressed that commercial interest was not at the heart of the event.
“Above all we want to inspire lots of children to think beyond their limits, to think great, to stimulate their imagination and help them see, also in terms of self-esteem, improving their self esteem, that adding one brick above another great things can be achieved. So, this tower will be a symbol for these children, who are the builders of tomorrow for us, of what they may do for the entire world,” he said, adding that the event echoed the Expo’s theme of building a better, more sustainable future.
The moment of truth arrived as the final pieces were added to the tower and a tape measure dropped down from a crane beside it. Guinness World Records adjudicator Lorenzo Veltri’s thumbs up sign announced the happy news to the young spectators; at 35,05 meters high, their tower had made history and entered the book of records.
