Lego Bridge

While driving through the outskirts of Wuppertal in the Rhine-Rhur metropolitan region of Germany, drivers are wont to stare in disbelief as a giant multicolored cluster of Legos hovers from a bridge overhead.

Though it may not be visually apparent, these Legos are actually the product of more than a century of locomotive history.

The Wuppertal Northern Railway was constructed in 1879 to compete with the adjacent BME line for train passengers crossing through Wuppertal, Germany. But the BME line, built three decades earlier, had already claimed the easiest and most centrally located route, forcing the Wuppertal Northern Railway to take a complex detour through tunnels and atop viaducts.

Needless to say, the Wuppertal Northern Railway was vastly outcompeted by the BME, and by the late 1990s the track became abandoned.

In the coming years, the former railway was converted into a bike path, but the concrete bridges remained dull when viewed from ground level. To revitalize one of the bridges, the city of Wuppertal hired street artist Megx, who was inspired by his two daughters’ enjoyment of playing with Legos. After getting permission from The Lego Group, Megx and a team of painters spent two weeks painting the 2700 square foot Schwesterstraße Bridge in Lego form, a design that still clings to the bridge today.