Lego is surely the most versatile, creative and ingenious toy ever created. It’s incredible to think that a handful (or bucketful) of plastic bricks can give hours of pleasure to both kids and big kids alike. It’s educational, inspirational and downright fun. As if all this weren’t enough, Lego has now proven its ultimate versatility by going where few toys have ever gone before: making a huge leap from the world of toys to the world of art.

A love of Lego is something you never grow out of. While most people do not continue to play with Lego into their adult lives, we all wish that we could. Only those that do renew their childhood obsession as adults are able to realize the true potential of Lego. As children our imaginations are always much bigger than our stockpile of bricks and impatience keeps us tearing town models before they are complete. For creative adults with too much time on their hands, however, the sky is quite literally the limit.

Ok, so we all thought that we were pretty good at Lego building when we were kids, and you may well remember some of your master creations even now. You’re mum probably took photos of some of them, insisting that it will be good to look back once you become a famous architect or engineer. But be honest, you never created anything quite like this. Enjoy these totally real Lego sculptures and some facts we mostly made up.

A Lego Club in Hong Kong – yes they have those – created this model of the Beijing Olympic complex. The famous Birds Nest Stadium took over 100 hours to build.

One the opposite side of the complex sits the less famous but equally impressive Water Cube swimming centre. This took 120 hours to build.

Ok, so this is not the biggest or most accurate Lego sculpture ever built but 10 out of 10 for originality and creativity! I bet Steven Hawking would love this. And if he didn’t, you could probably just unplug him or something.

A church in Sweden created this divine image over the course of two years. Members of the congregation donated over 30,000 bricks and the statue stands at 5ft 8inches.

Lego Jesus has been broken apart for your sins but will be rebuilt in a thousand years time, possibly in the form of Lego Elvis.

Chewbacca’s voice was famously recorded by getting a tired deaf person to stand barefoot on a Lego brick. Interestingly, the kid who played young Anakin Skywalker was actually paid in Lego.

In May of 2008, the construction team at Legoland Windsor broke a world record by building the tallest Lego tower in history:

The tower was nearly 100ft tall and made up of a staggering 500,000 bricks. It was built to celebrate Lego’s 50th anniversary. The previous world record for tallest Lego tower was 96ft and was set in Toronto the previous year. Torontonians, as we all know, kind have a thing for huge shafts.