Los Angeles is always changing, and so is its skyline, a fact Jorge Parra keeps in mind as he engineers his own version of L.A. ... in his kitchen.
Parra's L.A. is made up of about 70,000 Lego pieces, and it takes up about 72-square-feet in his home.
“I love skyscrapers and towers,” Jorge says. “I wanted to recreate the skyline – and that’s something that I am still working on. I only have four [skyscrapers] right now and City Hall. I want to expand that to the Ritz-Carlton and the Bank of America Tower. I think those are going to be my next projects.”
His colorful plastic brick model of L.A. already includes the Wilshire Grand Tower, L.A. City Hall, the U.S. Bank Tower, LAX. And, of course, there is even a miniature In-N-Out.
When Jorge isn’t working on his Lego L.A. City; he works in the real Los Angeles.
“I am a police officer with the LAPD,” Jorge says. “As a police officer you focus a lot on detail. You have to be very detail-oriented. It’s a way to release what you do at work. It’s a form of therapy as well.”
Jorge Parra had never seen Lego bricks until he was in second grade when his neighbor received a Lego set for his birthday. After that, Jorge knew exactly what he was going to ask for when his own birthday rolled around. Jorge, now 23, has been collecting ever since.
He says that he never would have imagined what would become of his collection.
“You can take those bricks, those generic multicolored bricks that everyone knows and go and sculpt something like this,” Jorge says. “These structures that are instantly recognizable to anyone in L.A..”
His model isn’t an exact replica, but the iconic elements really paint a picture of the city life.
There's a section that resembles the historic core in downtown, and a beach that has a lot of wacky characters that might remind one of Venice Beach – I'm looking at you, Lego man with a banana costume.
The characters are everywhere. On one corner a Lego man is selling hot dogs, and a few blocks down, a quartet of Legos are about to play some mariachi music.
Jorge’s model isn’t on display year-round because it takes up so much space in his home. But he makes an effort to recreate, organize and add new iconic structures to this city once a year for his YouTube channel.
Make sure to listen to the audio to hear Parra reveal where he finds his rare Legos, and to hear the little Metro train that runs through his Los Angeles.
