Back in 2013 Ryan built a LEGO model of Athen’s famed Acropolis temple complex and the iconic columned Parthenon. The huge diorama was built as part of a series of models (the first being the Colosseum) built around ancient history for Sydney University’s Nicholson Museum.
The Nicholson Museum then donated the model to the Acropolis Museum in Athens, where it now sits beside the real thing and is drawing in huge crowds of children. You can read more about it and see it on display in Greece in this UK Metro article.
The model used just over 120,000 LEGO parts and as with may of our models, especially those built on baseplates, uses a lot of DUPLO bricks to create a solid foundation to build up from. Ryan chose to build the Acropolis and Parthenon mid-construction so viewers could see it come to life.
Here you can see how Ryan literally sketched out the plan for the Acropolis on the baseplates before building began:
And here you can see the layers of DUPLO bricks used to support the rocky outcrop that the Acropolis sits on:
You can see some of the building details being built in these photos:
And here is the model almost complete:
