My newest MOC, India’s Taj Mahal, is a commissioned piece made for an Australian film called Taj. It's a redemption story about an Indian man Vjay (Indian as in India, not North America) who rebuilds a relationship with his 10-year-old daughter from who he has been estranged since the breakup of his marriage to her mother. What brings them together is the chance finding of thousands of white Lego pieces at a garage sale. They decide to build the Taj Mahal over several weekends. The film’s producer, Winston Furlong, asked me to build a model of the Taj Mahal that incorporated the best features of the previous two models I had built. So it is not surprising that some of the designed elements (the turrets, the reflecting pool, etc.) have similarities to the two previous models. The producer had some other requirements that I needed to incorporate into the model. First was the idea of “simple elegance”. I needed to remember that the model was being built by a precocious teen-ager (with the help of her grandfather who is an architect) so I tried not to use any advanced building techniques (ie. SNOT, etc.). Second was the fact the model occasionally gets damaged (there’s one scene where Vjay tips the entire model) so not only does the entire model neatly fall apart into 40 some odd pieces, but each of the individual designed elements (turrets, archways, bases, etc.) further fall apart along pre-designed fracture points. This build was also unique for me as I allowed the producer full creative rights… thereby allowing him to ask for changes and modifications (even if I didn’t agree). With any luck I’ll be heading off to Australia this summer with the model to be the Lego “expert” during some of the movie’s filming. The producer is also ordering enough spare parts so that I (with some help) can produce a duplicate of the original model and some extra designed elements. The model’s first public display will be at Brickworld. Arthur