Since March 2024, the LEGO Ideas website has included an entry for Bellingham’s Old City Hall (present-day Whatcom Museum). This design has the chance to become an official LEGO set if it receives 10,000 votes within two years from the start.
This design was the creation of “Master Builder” Brad Bergman. Since playing with LEGO as a child in the 1970s, Bergman started hobby building while working at a Fort Bragg, California toy store in 2009. After briefly opening a secondhand LEGO store in Seattle, he now hosts family events with his husband, Mike Tarrant, in Bellingham and Lynden.
Built in 1892, Old City Hall became the Whatcom Museum in 1941. The rare example of Romanesque Revival style towering over Bellingham made it a prime candidate for the design.
“It’s a striking landmark in town,” says Bergman. “It catches your eye. I love old architecture. You know, in America, we only go back, what, 400 years from now and that’s why I love castles and older architecture in the rest of the world. But I thought it would make a really cool, iconic building, so I designed it digitally using a program from BrickLink.com.”
With enough awareness and votes, the project can inspire fun education on local features and civic pride for all ages.
Sharing LEGO Ideas
At this time of writing, the Old City Hall project has received nearly 4,000 votes of the needed 10,000.
“As a designer, I can go out and solicit people to support or vote for the model, and if that model reaches 10,000 votes, then LEGO will consider it,” says Bergman. “They put it through a review board process, and they’ll consider producing it as a real set. Some things in the past that have gone through that process are like a fisherman’s shop on the wharf. A lot of different sets that people have started to collect came out of that project.”
Bergman says that when the vote count reaches 5,000, the deadline will gain 180 more days.
“The more local support we can get, and if people share it, that’s the big thing right now,” says Bergman. “To not just vote, but share with your friends, even outside of town. I think Bellingham, the LEGO community here, has already seen it. We’re now reaching out to their friends and family, as well as city officials. The museum obviously has put it in their newsletter, so we need to broaden our voting pool to really get to that 10,000 now.”
Bellingham is Awesome
Whatcom Museum has hosted events where Bergman built the Old City Hall model, and kids played with LEGO kits, raising awareness of the project among families.
“It’s been just joyful wherever we encounter people with the museum build,” says Bergman. “If I take it to other events, people instantly recognize it, and we start talking about Bellingham and the building’s museum events, and what we love about the town. And you know, the things that make Bellingham unique, and being part of this community, everything has got a different story.”
In the meantime, LEGO events have also become a way to build community.
“LEGO is often viewed as a toy, but it’s also a tool, I’ve found, in a variety of different ways,” says Bergman. “When I had the store, there were a number of families that had adult kids with learning disabilities or ADHD or autism. When they come into the store, LEGO becomes a medium for communicating and building community. If you put bricks on a table at a work event, people just start playing, and they get the toy. Then, they also start playing and interacting differently as people through this toy, which really is an amazing tool. Children and psychologists often will have toys and LEGO in their offices for kids to play with.”
“Play On” in Bellingham
Bergman has continued other LEGO projects, such as a boat design for All American Marine and hopes for more Bellingham-themed designs.
“It has brought people together, and it crosses race, it crosses gender, it crosses socioeconomic levels,” says Bergman. “Which is what I loved about the store I had because we got our bricks secondhand so we could charge a lower price. And a lot of disadvantaged families were able to come in and participate with LEGO, bring it into the home for the kids and not have to pay full price.”
Whatcom Museum will also continue hosting events to promote the LEGO design as its campaign progresses.
“I’m pretty sure once we hit 5000, we’ll do something with the museum to either do a special newsletter or do some kind of event,” says Bergman. “If you want to see the model, the actual one for voting is at the museum.”
You can support the Old City Hall project by voting on the LEGO site. Voting requires a signup with an email address, but the site does not send marketing emails. For project updates, sign up for the Whatcom Museum mailing list.
