All the faculty buildings are on the model, a bus is driving along Heyendaalseweg and an ambulance is waiting in front of the hospital. Student Takora van den Akker meticulously recreated the university campus using Lego. The result can be admired in the Huygens building.

There is no way to miss the model standing in the hall of the Huygens building. Next to Foucault’s Pendulum is a colourful Lego representation of the campus. The builder is Takora van den Akker, who is pursuing a Dual Bachelor’s programme in Nijmegen: Mathematics and Physics. ‘As a child, I was already a fan of Lego.’

Preparation

It was the week after the 2023 introduction. Takora was feeling bored in his room at home in Otterlo. The official opening of the academic year was just a week away. ‘So I thought: why don’t I recreate the Huygens building out of Lego?’

Using 3D images from Google Maps, Takora studied the Science building in great detail. He also looked at online images of the Faculty. For the university buildings that would follow, the student photographed the exterior himself. ‘I walked every street on campus to look closely at all the details.’

Building

Building the scale model of the Huygens building took Takora a week. ‘My room at home was full of Lego. When it became clear that I would be moving to Nijmegen, I understood that I couldn’t take all that Lego with me. So I started putting it together and decided to recreate the other faculties as well.’

The Maria Montessori (Social Sciences) building was the hardest to build. ‘It has strange shapes. I applied the Pythagorean theorem to make the sloping sides.’ Simple calculations for a Maths and Physics student.

‘I applied the Pythagorean theorem to make the sloping sides’

He also applied the Pythagorean theorem to recreate the pediatric hospital. A problem arose while Takora was building Radboud university medical center: it was partly demolished. What to do, include it in the model or leave it out? ‘I read that the demolished sections would be replaced by something park-like, so I just put down some green Lego for now.’

The Lego campus is almost lifelike. Even the four old chimneys on Kapittelweg are on it, and the car park on Heyendaalseweg is made of grid blocks that look very similar to the horizontal panels that are actually on the outside. Atop the science faculty stand two radio telescopes and two star domes. An ambulance is waiting in front of the Radboud university medical center Emergency Department and a bus is driving by the Huygens building.

The exhibition

After a year of construction, the remaining campus buildings were also ready. ‘I left home and thought: let me ask the faculty people if they want to exhibit the Lego work. I got a response quite quickly, but it took a long time to find a suitable showcase. Everything remained under my bed for at least another year. Then I brought it in pieces to the hall of the Huygens building and reassembled it here.’

The southernmost part of the campus is missing from the Lego model. The simple explanation is that Takora ran out of building blocks. But the Maths and Physics student is still willing to reconstruct the Berchmanianum if someone has old Lego that they can donate. ‘Be my guest.’

How long the model will remain in the Huygens building is as yet unclear. As far as Takora is concerned, ‘until I graduate’.

Anyone willing to donate Lego to Takora van den Akker can send an email to [email protected]