BrickTopia
Stock Exchange
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The massive BrickTopia Stock Exchange dominates the new " Greed Square is specifically zoned to glorify profit and success. The Stock Exchange building emphasizes this glory with its astounding height of four and a half feet. It is nearly a third higher than all other buildings in the city. The building is styled in a Baroque fashion based on a computer-designed model from several years back (see it here ). When originally designed, this model was pure fantasy. It was felt that nobody could ever acquire the number of round white bricks and 1x4x6 white windows needed to build the structure. Taken with this design, BrickTopian planners spent many long years searching obscure BrickLink shops, gradually building up a large cache of the needed parts. Suprisingly, several large stocks of windows and curved panels were made available over the ages, finally making this building feasible. Once the parts were assembled, the next challenge was construction. The entire area around the construction site was littered with semi-sorted yellow and white bricks. Progress went quickly on the first few floors, but as the building got taller, much time and effort had to be expended in transporting bricks up to the active floors. This slowed progress significantly as compared to other, smaller BrickTopia buildings. The final structure is 1 story smaller and 8 studs thinner (in depth) than
the computer model. |
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Here, one can see the highly Baroque, lower portion of the building. A curtain of columns and arches skirts the outer wall. Strangely enough, sufficient numbers of 4x4x1 curved yellow bricks could not be found. Although these are known to come in large quantities in new sets to be released in July 2003, BrickTopia could not wait that long for its beloved Stock Exchange. Therefore, the yellow curves had to be approximated with regular bricks, some of which are offset by 1/2 stud to better approximate a curved surface. A decorative pool graces the center of the gardens in the front of the building. Planters on either side feature a colorful blend of annual flowers. The gardens form the center of "Greed Square." Around them are situated road, train, and monorail arteries, as well as other buildings (such as the Far East Travel Agency). |
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This picture shows a close-up of the entrance. One can barely spot
the front desk inside. Be sure to follow the links below for extensive
interior shots. |
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This is a picture taken by a stock broker as he walks towards the building early in the morning. One gets a good sense of the massive height of the building from this picture (especially since about half of the building extends beyond the top of the image). |
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The picture below shows the exterior of the building's roof. This serves as a private penthouse for the Stock Exchange's president, Klaus VonBrickenstein.
Interior Pictures:
First Floor: Reception, McDonnalds, Grandma Brick's Bookstore
Second/Third Floor: Exchange Floor and Brokerage Houses
Fourth/Fifth/Sixth Floor: MIS, the Gym, "Chez Brad" Health Spa, and Penthouse