lego pole

This Toronto street pole is being transformed into LEGO art

by Nisean Lorde for Post City Posted: February 27, 2024

A Toronto visual artist is drawing attention by transforming a plain downtown street pole into a colourful LEGO art structure outside the popular Sam James coffee bar on Harbord St.

“There appears to be a community effort to [a]dorn this pole with Lego outside the Sam James on Harbord,” one X user noted.

The work, titled, Le Tour de Lego, is the work of independent photojournalist and local multi-media artist Martin Reis, whose work has been exhibited everywhere from the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal to the Crane Kalman Gallery in the UK.

This is how the pole looked before Reis began working on it outside 297 Harbord St.

“It seemed like the perfect spot and easy for me to continue working on it as it is on my way to work,” Reis told a Toronto media outlet. “So I got together with the wonderful Macintosh family and artist Sean Martindale and began the project.”

Reis added that the idea was to transform plain wooden pole into something “joyful and colourful” that both young and old could enjoy.

“What better material than LEGO? It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” he told the publication.

Reiss also gained prominence in August 2023 when he took to the streets of downtown Toronto in a yellow soccer referee uniform, issuing red and yellow cards to drivers blocking intersections.

It was part of a visual art piece dubbed Crosswalk Referee.

Article exclusive to POST CITY

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