Saskatoon begins building 16‑foot‑tall Lego mosaic

(Hallee Mandryk/CTV News)

The construction of Saskatoon’s new downtown library isn’t the only thing being pieced together by the Saskatoon Public Library (SPL). Saturday marked the beginning of the library’s goal to create Saskatoon’s largest Lego mosaic.

“I participated at the Halifax Children’s Discovery Museum in Halifax with my family 10 years ago, and I thought it was the best thing ever,” said Janna Sampson, director of strategy and communication for the SPL.

Sampson said she spoke with staff at the Lego-building event and wrote down the name of the man who played a major role in facilitating the project: Robin Sather.

“I kept it for all these years because we thought it would be such a special project for Saskatoon,” Sampson said.

That special project is now a reality, as the SPL is working with certified professional Lego builder Robin Sather to create a 16-foot-tall installation that will be featured on the main floor of the new library.

“My job is to do Lego stuff where the Lego company doesn’t generally go. So that means smaller cities and regions across Canada and even around the world. So I do cool Lego stuff, commissions, custom kits, builds like this, the giant mosaics, and even huge builds in shopping malls, libraries, science centers, and stuff. So it’s playing with Lego all day,” Sather said.

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Sather joined SPL staff at Saskatoon’s Frances Morrison Central Library to kick off the assembly of the mosaic, which will be titled “Where We Grow”.

“I got contacted and we started the whole process of figuring out what we were going to do as a theme and then designing it and how this was going to work and how the public would help build it and everything like that,” Sather said.

Sampson said the library worked with Wanuskewin to select the plants that best represented Saskatchewan, and then Sather translated the concept into a Lego pattern.

“Then it was a matter of going back and forth with the graphic designer here within the library to get the colours that work. So we got to a place where I knew it was going to render very well in Lego colours, but we still chose to do it with 30 different Lego colours, which is the most colours I’ve ever done in any mosaic in my whole career. So it’s going to look absolutely amazing,” Sather said.

Sampson said the project has been a passion project for her and many others at SPL, who have dedicated many hours to the coordination that a project that includes a quarter-million Lego pieces.

“There is 7,000 pieces that the community is building. There’s over 256,000 pieces altogether of Lego that make up this mosaic. The vision for the new central library has really been to be part of this community and of this place. So we just thought that the plants would be such a beautiful way to tell the story of Saskatchewan and have that in the library,” Sampson said.

The assembly of the mosaic is broken down into many small squares that members of the public are invited to piece together. After participants complete their square — similar to paint‑by‑number — they hand it to library staff, who place it on a larger Lego sheet according to a grid mapping out the squares. The sheets will eventually be attached to one another in the final step of assembling the mosaic.

“We’ve got people building little tiny panels here that have up to 20 colours on them. So they’re very complicated little panels, but everyone is doing so well, almost no errors. It’s fantastic,” Sather said.

Sampson said a special part of the project has been seeing so many families take part.

“I knew that people loved Lego. I did not know people love Lego this much. It’s been amazing to see all the families coming, all the different ages. It is such a universal thing and I think it’s just speaks to creativity and people wanting to be part of something,” Sampson said.

The project is one that all ages can participate in. Five-year-old Liam came by the event with his parents and said the most difficult part was finding each individual pieces for his square.

“I just like building Lego with my mom and dad,” Liam said.

The young builder added that Lego projects are common in his house, and he was happy to use his Lego skills to help with such a large project.

“My dad has a whole Lego bin. One time we built a two-layered house,” Liam said.

Sather said families like Liam’s are what has kept him coming back to his job after more than two decades.

“That’s honestly why I’ve done this job for 22 years. It brings everybody together. We’ve had many families here. You’ve got grandkids, you’ve got parents, and you’ve got the grandparents. And they’re all building a panel, and they’re all enjoying it together. And they’re not just doing it to have something for the kids to do. They’re all enjoying it, and they know they’re participating in a great project, and it brings great joy,” Sather said.

Until the end of July, SPL locations across the city will be hosting drop in sessions for anyone looking to participate in the project.