Teen With Autism Builds World’s Largest LEGO Titanic Replica

Brynjar Karl Birgisson and the World’s largest LEGO Titanic Replica

Brynjar Karl Birgisson is a 17-year-old teen with autism from Reykjavík, Iceland. He has a passion and fascination for LEGO, which led him to setting a world record: building the largest replica of the Titanic from legos.

Birgisson was only 10 years old when he was inspired to build his own LEGO model. He got inspired when he went to Legoland Billund in Denmark with his mother and saw different models of houses, locations and ships, all made of LEGO. “When I walked out, I thought to myself, ‘I want to make one real-life scale model myself,’” said Birgisson to CBC. 

After years of researching and deciding what to build, he ended up deciding to build the iconic ship, the Titanic.

This project came with a lot of challenges. Birgisson recalls three different times where he felt like giving up. “I became frustrated and wanted to quit. Especially when the stern collapsed not once, but twice, then I seriously made an attempt to just stop this crazy project,” Birgisson shared with the Titanic Museum Attraction at Pigeon Forge in Tennessee.

He continued with the project of building the Titanic with the help of his grandfather, an engineer, by approximating the number of LEGO bricks his grandson would need. His mother helped him by ordering the LEGO bricks, finding the perfect location to build it and hosting a fundraiser online. 

Birgisson was able to build a 6.33-meter-long model, where he had to use 56,000 LEGO bricks and more than 700 painstaking hours and took him 11 months to complete. This amazing masterpiece acted as inspiration for him to feel more independent, having a positive influence on him. 

Since October 2019, the LEGO ship has been on exhibition at the Titanic Museum Attraction at Pigeon Forge and will still there until December of 2020.

“This whole journey has helped me out of my autistic fog…the teen, who has become an advocate for autism. I was totally unable to communicate when I started the project and now, I’m standing on stage and giving interviews. It has given me confidence,” said Birgisson to CBC. 

Birgisson co-authored a book with his mother called “My Autistic X Factor,” where he describes the X-Factor as something really special that he thinks everyone has. “I found my “X Factor” when I was 10 years old, and I really want to share that story with you because that is the time when everything changed for me” said Brynjar to CBS News

He was also part of a documentary called “How The Titanic Became My Lifeboat” which explores the opportunities with Birgisson and other people who shared their own experiences with autism and how their aptitude made them overcome it. The film had a pre-premiere at the Forge Cinemas in March and got amazing feedback from the audience and it was going to premiere in Iceland in April but, because of COVID-19 it had to be postponed.