Are Lego Bricks a Practical Building Material?

A new tower has been constructed in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, and it may be the world’s tallest structure built from interlocking plastic blocks. Thousands of volunteers worked on it for weeks, stacking pieces together by hand until the tower reached a height of 118 feet (35.95 m), more than a year after construction began. The structure is named Omer Tower in memory of Omer Sayag, an 8-year-old LEGO fan who died of cancer in 2014.

Building toys since 1932:

• The tower consists of more than 500,000 plastic bricks. Guinness World Records will determine whether Omer Tower beats the previous record of nearly 115 feet (35.05 m), set in 2015 in Milan, Italy.
• The tower was made from both LEGO bricks and generic toy building blocks. LEGO is an abbreviation of two Danish words -- “leg godt,” which means “play well.”
• The LEGO company was started in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The company is now owned by his grandson, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.