Morten and i and a tiny little lego model. (crawling on lego baseplates with bare knees is clearly a bad idea)

Hi! I’m Are. That’s me on the right in the picture above (albeit in a slightly younger version). About ten years ago, after I had rediscovered LEGO, I dove head-first into the world of AFOLs—which I never knew existed up until then. Since then I have traveled to LEGO conventions all over the place (well, not all over, but I’m getting there!) and been so lucky to meet all kinds of fantastic people. And what happens when you go places and meet people? You collect stories.

That’s mainly what I’ll be doing here at BrickNerd: telling stories about people and places. And the coolest place my hobby has taken me so far is arguably one of the ballrooms at the Norwegian Royal Palace in Oslo.

When I started building stuff again after my dark ages, it was no surprise that cars were a favourite topic. I’ve always liked cars and loved building cars when I was a kid. So when Morten Dalermoen, a fellow member from Norwegian LUG Brikkelauget reached out to me and said he was building a minifig-scale version of the Royal Palace—this building…

… and that he needed some cars to go on display with it, especially a couple of limousines that could fit the royal family, I jumped on board pretty quickly. After a bit of trial and error (and one discarded model that Morten didn’t like) I ended up with these:

I had some custom printed dollar bill tiles lying around, so I applied them as placeholders for the custom engraved ‘A-1’ and ‘A-2’ tiles that were added later.

A-2 on display at Bricktastic in Manchester in 2018 on a vignette I built for it. Lights by Brickstuff.

The premiere of Morten’s model was at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of LEGO Norway in Oslo in November 2012. It was rumoured that Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit (the two minifigs waving to the crowd in the image above) would visit, and that’s why I originally built two limos—I was planning on giving them one.

As you can see, there are some custom chromed elements on it, because hey, you can’t beat a bit of bling on a luxury car. They came from my go-to guy for that: Auri at Chrome Block City in Poland—he’s super reliable, service-minded and delivers relatively quickly. He didn’t have all the parts I needed in chrome, so he custom chromed them for me—and when I told him one of the cars might end up in the hands of royalty, he didn’t even charge me for it!

Sadly, something came up, so the Crown Prince and his wife couldn’t attend the event in Oslo. But Morten (just!) managed to finish the Palace itself in time. So that was on display along with the cars.

Other MOCs 3.JPG — Yes, that is a painted and cut minifig plume. Sorry!

Although by LEGO World in February 2013, the whole model looked a lot more polished. I wasn’t exhibiting, apart from lending him the limos and a few other cars for his display, but I visited and was able to see it all in its glory with my cars in place.

Morten’s Royal Palace, with my cars placed around it.

A-1 peeking out of the gate, complete with custom engraved license plate.

After that, the Palace went on display at our Norwegian annual LUG event, På Kloss Hold in Trondheim, where Morten had expended the area in front of the building quite a bit, and in the process, pretty much exhausted the world’s supply of sand red plates!

The Royal Palace, back view. Featuring a few sand red plates.

And then I didn’t really think much more about it… until Morten called me and said that apparently, Queen Sonja had heard about his project and probably seen some pictures. She wanted something for the annual summer season palace tours that would appeal particularly to the kids, so he got a phone call from the Royal Palace asking if he’d let them display the LEGO version there from June to August. He said yes, of course, but replied that the whole thing was too big for him to set up alone, so he’d need to bring somebody to help, and they agreed to that. So, seeing as he saw my contribution as an important part of the whole, he asked if I would like to join him.

Now, I couldn’t immediately see any other circumstances in my future that would lead to me being invited to the Royal Palace, so I said yes, figuring it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But they don’t let just anybody walk into the building. Before I could get access, I would need to be thoroughly vetted by PST, the Norwegian Police Security Service, which can best be described as the equivalent of the British MI5 or the FBI in the US. I sent them my personal details, and luckily, I have never been involved in dubious activities grave enough for them to see me as unfit to visit the palace, so I got the go-ahead. Yay!

No divided highways here - this is norway!

I drove from my home in Bergen to Oslo, close to 500 kilometers (around 300 miles) and arrived at the rear entrance to the palace. The question was, where do you actually drive and park your car when you’re visiting for “business” purposes? I’d never thought about that. So I cautiously drove up the hill towards a gate, where there was a little sentry box with a royal guard in it. He looked a bit puzzled by my presence but walked around to the driver's side of the car.

I said, “I’m helping set up a LEGO model of the Royal Palace inside the Royal Palace. Is this the entrance I’m supposed to use?” He said, “No. Not unless you’re royalty.”

I had to admit that I wasn’t (and my pedestrian car probably screamed that fact). So I was politely pointed to a different entrance where I eventually met up with Morten who was bringing all the big boxes. Then we started carrying things inside. We had to go through a full security check, with airport-type metal detectors, before we were allowed inside the palace, and a nice guard followed us up the stairs and into “Lille Festsal,” the ballroom where the model was supposed to be set up.

Morten setting up the royal palace at the royal palace.

We started unpacking the model from the boxes and placed the various sections on the tables that were provided. And then, about ten minutes into the setup, the guard said, “Hey guys, I have something else I need to do. You don’t mind being alone here, do you? Just make yourselves at home!”

Not the thing you expect to hear when visiting the Royal Palace… but we went about our business. Every now and then some new tour guides, being shown their workplace for the summer, stopped by and chatted for a bit and took some photos, and then a crew from national television shot some footage and interviewed Morten for a news story.

About six hours later, we were done! I added the final touch—some minifigures that I’d put together to resemble King Harald and Queen Sonja.

i’m pretty sure the king and queen saw the palace —and their minifig counterparts —at some point during that summer. i’m also pretty sure they didn’t mind my versions of them. they have a good sense of humour.

Then the whole thing was ready for the summer tours! You can see more pictures in my Flickr album.

Morten’s palace stayed intact for another year and a half, before being demolished to give way for a recreation of Amalienborg, its Danish counterpart (which, of course, the Norwegian King and Queen came to visit in their limousine, so I managed to play a little part in that, too). In its lifetime, it was shown at several shows, but its glory days were undoubtedly that summer spent inside the full-size version of itself. It also managed to give me a unique experience, one that I most certainly wouldn’t have had if Morten hadn’t built it—and so it became one of many interesting places I’ve visited because of my LEGO hobby (but undoubtedly the grandest)!

What is the most interesting place you’ve visited as a consequence of your LEGO hobby? Let us know in the comments!

Are will be presenting at Brickvention this weekend. Brickvention is a LEGO convention usually held in Melbourne, Australia, but this year it’ll all be online, on January 16 & 17. You can attend by clicking here!