Discovery Of A 3D World

I was born in Denmark.  My family immigrated to Canada when I was 4.  The summer I turned 10, my younger brother and I got to go back and spend an entire glorious summer in Denmark.  We mostly stayed at my aunt and uncles' cramped but sunny little 2 bedroom apartment, full of musty smells, royal Danish blue china plates, and the oldest furniture I had ever seen, on Blegdamsvej in downtown Copenhagen.

   

My Uncle was a retired mechanical engineer, the old school kind that designed and machined parts for factories.  One night, about 2 weeks after we arrived, we were astonished to discover that what I took for a closet door in the small sitting room, pivoted down to reveal his amazing N scale model railroad layout on the back of the door.  It was a countryside with rolling hills, small town and rural stations, farms, and tiny people. There were passenger trains, freight trains, and coal trains.  It was densely textured and layered with multiple levels of track, trestles, and tunnels.  I would sit at night watching him make buildings and accessories, paint them, and fret over their placement. He would sing softly to himself while sipping akavit and beer.  Every once in a while he would look up, laugh, and say in Danish, 'stop staring, it isn't polite'.

Jorgen took us to one of Copenhagen's largest toy stores one Saturday morning, to get parts and paint for his train set installation, and that's when I discovered Lego.  At that time, the Lego kit as we know it today didn't exist.  Lego only came in boxes of assorted pieces. There wasn't much color choice, but the shear variety of building blocks that snapped together, including pitched roofs, windows, and doors, was amazing. There were even wheels with bearing blocks to make moving vehicles.  There were beautiful house models of all shapes and sizes, and an installation of the Danish royal summer palace; all reproduced in Lego. I was stunned and had to be dragged away from the displays when it was time to leave. 

Lego hadn't come to Canada yet, and both my brother and I wanted it.  My mother cautioned us to be patient.  Later that summer, when my birthday was coming up, I was asked what I wanted.  Naturally I replied, 'Lego'.  Kenny and I were delighted to get so much Lego and other toys from the family, that my mother had to buy 2 extra suit cases to carry everything home on the plane.  

From then on, until Lego was sold in Canada, every birthday and Christmas meant new Lego shipped to us from relatives in Denmark.  Kids from all over the neighbourhood would come over to play day after day in our Lego filled basement.  When we grew older, nieces and nephews played with it. There is, in fact, still a huge box of assorted Lego in a downstairs closet at my parents house.  And, I am happy to say, my youngest son is a consummate Legomaniac, building the kits of course, but then taking them apart to make new stuff out of his imagination.

2011 to 2013 - Assorted assets for game and personal projects modelled in 3D Studio Max.  Almost every single vehicle and ship started life as a chamfered cylinder or box.

2012 - When it was clear that something bad was starting to happen in Detroit, I started a series of 3D urban landscapes.  It's more than just the post-nuke imagery of Fall Out.  As an architect, I just couldn't stop wondering about the ecology of the old and new city.  Do we consolidate and leave the edges?  Do we take the edge and leave the centre?  And what happens where these conditions collide?

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen