[Local Landmark] Great American Tower - Cincinnati, OH

[TheWarden]

Greetings, fellow Eurobrickers! I'm pleased to present my contest entry, the Great American Tower in my city of Cincinnati, Ohio. It's one of the newest and greenest additions to our skyline. I'll probably repost this after the contest with my own personal thoughts, things I learned about, some of the techniques inside it, self criticism, that sort of thing, but for now, it must stand on it's own. I hope you enjoy it!

Some facts about the building courtesy of https://www.queencitysquare.com/

--

Great American Tower at Queen City Square, completed in 2011, has become the pinnacle of downtown Cincinnati. Rising 41 stories at the forefront of the business district, the 800,000 square feet tower is the region’s tallest structure and downtown’s largest and most prestigious office building. Certified as LEED Gold (Core & Shell), Great American Tower is downtown Cincinnati's first and only major office building designed and built under LEED guidelines, the industry standard for "green" buildings. Topped by its signature tiara, Great American Tower at Queen City Square offers a unique stellar design that is widely recognized throughout the world.

---

If you are interested in green buildings, you can follow the link above for a write up of its certification, but there are also more photos, fact sheets, and features of the building and Queen City Square.

So, on to the build and myself. A while back I got the New York skyline set and The LEGO Architect by Tom Alphin and just loved them but haven't really MOCced anything in that scale. But while I love the NY microscale, it doesn't leave a lot of room for details, but in looking back at the older Architecture sets, I settled on the midi-scale? of the LEGO 21018 United Nations Headquarters, so my entry is more in that scale and should be about that size, per contest requirements.

Each thumb you can click on for larger photos in Flickr.

Entry thread photo:

Great_American_Tower_1 by James Warden, on Flickr

Reference photo:

Great_American_Tower by James Warden, on Flickr

Some more:

Great_American_Tower_2 by James Warden, on Flickr

Great_American_Tower_3 by James Warden, on Flickr

I always like to try perspective photos, even if they don't turn out...

Great_American_Tower_4 by James Warden, on Flickr

Great_American_Tower_5 by James Warden, on Flickr

Finally, good luck to all entrants, and thanks to EB and LEGO for putting this together!

[CM4Sci]

Haha I love the hoop - awesome entry!

[Mr Greeble]

NPU on the net!

[tafkatb]

Brilliant! I've been wanting to try this myself but couldn't think of a good way to build the tiara; that basketball hoop is awesome.

[rodiziorobs]

NPU on the net. I think the trans-lt-blue definitely captures the look of the building (especially when you can see all the white ones around it).

[CaptainZebra]

If I was building this I would never have thought to use that net piece.

[BrickJagger]

Nice re-creation! I like the usage of the hoop, as well as the pith helmet on top of it.

[henrysunset]

I love the basketball hoop on top, very clever parts usage!

[TheWarden]

Thank you all for your comments. It looks like I even got the author of the book I was inspired by to come by!

Now that the contest is over, I'll probably add some more content here. I usually do a prettier collage style pic for Flickr, and I think I have one or two behind the scenes photos that could help somebody. The way the core is put together is a little different, it turned out to be a little frustrating to build until I got the geometry right.

I think I might have some commentary too about my difficulties with scale.