An architect transformed a scene by Fantozzi into a Lego set, and the success was incredible

“The idea of ​​using Lego bricks to represent the scene of Fantozzi who takes the bus on the fly was born during the lockdown of 2020, when after years of abstinence I took back the old sets I received as a child”, says Giorgio Tona, an architect who lives in Genoa, passionate about various forms of visual communication since adolescence such as digital illustration, photography, design and architecture, which has become his profession.

In his spare time, Giorgio’s hobbies are mainly music and the creation of original constructions in Lego bricks, he tells us: “Despite the semantic closeness of the latter passion with the profession of an architectit is actually an outlet that allows me to give more space to imagination and irony than I can do, for obvious reasons of legislation or the needs of the client, on construction sites in the real world”.

And it is precisely with great irony that the architect Tona has decided to transpose in Lego one of the most iconic scenes of Italian comedy, the accountant Fantozzi who takes the bus: “… I took over the old sets to clean them, reintegrate the pieces missing ones, replace the damaged ones and in the meantime inform me about the latest news in terms of pieces produced and construction techniques. At that point the subject of that scene in the film Fantozzifrom 1975it seemed perfect to try my hand at my own construction”.

For Giorgio that sequence in particular is a masterpiece of universal comedy, therefore: “A source of good humor for me and for the people I was going to show the diorama to. It seemed to me also a perfect construction theme to deal with different elements, a building, a road, a vehicle… and experimenting with some new techniques that I had discovered on the net in the meantime. The very fact that there was an imposing condominium building as a backdrop would also allow me to photograph a controlled scene in its entiretywithout the need to cut or replace the background”.

The design of the MOC, acronym of my own creation, as the Lego constructions of enthusiasts are called in the jargon, Giorgio tells us: “it was an empirical process, by trial and error, with the pieces I had available, or which in the meantime I ordered and I waited. Building with Lego bricks is still a pastime for me, so I got an initial idea of ​​the proportions and overall dimensions, but I left the final realization of the initial ideas to practical, manual and in any case playful experimentation”.

Tona also used a dedicated software, Studyjust to deepen some details such as, for example, the balcony railings.

Looking at the complex Lego constructions, we could consider colored bricks as the forerunners of pixels, explains Giorgio Tona: “The studentthat is, each of the studs that characterize the upper part of all Lego bricks, is a measure that first of all, it imposes a dimensional reasoning on the manufacturer, a boundary beyond which you cannot go and within which to express your creativity. The foundations of a building, for example, are usually in multiples of 16 units, exactly like desktop icons, I am thinking, for example, of the first Operating Systems with a graphical interface, equipped with large icons only 16×16 or 32×32 pixels”. He continues “On the other hand, in recent years it has developed among fans of Lego constructions an expressive form two dimensionalwhich exploits the bricks as if they were pixels on a digital palette”.

The latest version of Fantozzi who takes the bus on the fly is the result of a succession of different demolitions and reconstructions over the space of about six months, Giorgio Tona tells us: “It required a quantity of pieces that I am unable to quantify precisely, since there was no detailed preliminary design; eye to eye I would assume a quantity between three thousand and four thousand pieces, but I am ready to be proved wrong by a future more scrupulous counting”.

All the pieces used by Tona are original since she never resorts to modified parts or with custom colors/prints for her constructions, she says: “It is a self-imposed limit but also an incentive to make the most of what already exists” .

The set Lego with Fantozzi and the flying bus it was an immediate social phenomenon, the love that Italians have for the work of Paolo Villaggio rewarded it. Less predictable was the great international success that led the prototype, in short, to reach 10,000 votes on Lego Ideas, a necessary milestone for the Danish company to consider a possible official production.

“How quickly my proposal reached 10,000 votes amazed me first, I’ve been following the evolution of the projects uploaded to Lego Ideas for some time, having myself sent others in the past, and I must admit that I have rarely seen a project gain acceptance in so few days. I am very happy with this result, which I know depends mainly on the fascination that the saga created by Paolo Villaggio still exerts on the Italian public, but which is also partly derived from votes from abroad”.

Among the messages of appreciation that Tona has received, there are also many foreigners who know the film because it was dubbed into their language and consider it a milestone of international comedy, or people who learned to love the film after their parents, who emigrated to abroad before their birth, they let them discover it. Giorgio Tona continues: “Now that 10,000 votes have been reached, the only thing left to do is to wait for the final response from LegoI am serene about the possible outcome, the experience has already been thrilling up to this point”.

The next steps will be to bring the model dedicated to the Accountant most loved by Italians at the San Mauro Brick Show in mid-February, after which Tona would like to present something new at the Exhibricks to be held in Genoa in May: “I’m still in the process of gathering ideas for this new model. I also really like competing in the contests periodically launched on the main platforms dedicated to the Lego world. Following them all is impossible, but I hope to be able to participate in some of them in the coming months”.

For all lovers of Danish bricks and for the curious, Giorgio Tona will upload updates relating to his creations on the Instagram page @nastronauta