St. John’s Lafayette Square (minifig scale)

view of St. John's Lafayette Square LEGO model at Brickfair Virginia 2021
View of the LEGO® of St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square at BrickFair Virginia 2021.

As a lifelong fan of LEGO and an almost equally longterm fan of church architecture, I’ve been building LEGO churches for years. I attended St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square (“the Church of the Presidents”) for the first time during an internship in Washington, DC, in 2010.

After moving to DC in 2012 for law school, I floated around the Episcopal (and Methodist and Lutheran) churches in the city until officially joining St. John’s and being confirmed into the Episcopal Diocese of Washington in 2014.

2015
2015 model of St. John’s

Shortly thereafter, I built my first LEGO model of St. John’s using classic yellow bricks. It was not quite accurate and not anywhere close to minfigure scale, but it was also being built with my childhood LEGO collection.

Micro-Scale St. John’s (instructions available here)

A few years later, while completing the Education for Ministry program at St. John’s, one of my friends announced their family was moving across the country. I wanted to give to give them a DC-themed LEGO model, but they had all become cost-prohibitive. So, I decided to build a micro-scale version of the church using the newly-widely-available bright light yellow/cool yellow bricks that more accurately reflected the outside of the building.

Early construction phase of the church

Around August 2020, as the pandemic wore on, I began work on my ultimate goal: a mini figure scale model of St. John’s. To begin, I knew the portico would require 6 columns, so I spaced them out and began from there.

By June 2021 (and with the fortunate release of the Fiat 500 and a few friends sets), the church was taking shape and would be ready for display at Brickfair Virginia.

  • Overhead view of the church and street
  • View of the portico
  • An MPD/Secret Service task force drives around the church
  • View of the columbarium and north side of the church.
  • View of the south side of the church
  • A protestor on the front patio
  • Lit up at night
  • Another lighted view of the church
  • Matthew and Caitlin strolling by the church
  • Eastern view of the church including the connector (to the as of yet unbuilt Parish House)
  • Tweet of the church from Jake Tapper
  • View of the altar and pulpit
  • A mini figure celebrant behind the altar
  • A view of the presidential kneelers
  • One of the more famous fictional Episcopalians– Bruce Wayne–attending the service
  • The chandelier
  • A view of the organ pipes
  • …and the organ console
  • Another shot of the columbarium.
  • Detail shot of the pulpit and organ pipes.
Matthew Taylor (builder) with LEGO St. John's at Brickfair Virginia 2021
Matthew Taylor (builder) with LEGO St. John’s at Brickfair Virginia 2021
Jake Tapper (of CNN) tweeted a photo of St. John’s to his millions of Twitter followers.