Tonight I watched the first episode of the new series LEGO Masters.

While watching I thought about Ankerstein.

Building with Ankerstein is one of my hobbies, although I will admit I have not built anything for quite some time. Maybe because my build table is full of book stacks 🙂

I discovered Ankerstein about 16 years ago during a trip to Jena, Germany. They had an exhibition at a shopping mall.The Ankerstein system is pretty cool. You start with a Basic Box and then add Extension Boxes to build progressively larger structures.

As you add additional sets the variety of stones increase and new stones are introduced. The complexity of the buildings increase with each box.

Here is a chapel built with just the first box. Set 6

You can see that it is pretty basic.

Here is a church building that I build with the eight boxes of stones that make up set #20 (6 + 6A + 8A + 10A + 12A + 14A + 16A + 18A).

The building is definitely more complex.

This structure is a church with an attached convent.

Here is a Town Gate.

The boxes come with layer plans for building different structures, but many builders come up with their own designs.

The stones can be used over and over again as they are simply stacked on top of each other. Sometimes it takes a really steady hand to place the blocks, and I have also had a few collapses when I have bumped the building or table.

There is no big Ankerstein Masters competition, but there is a worldwide club of Ankerstein builders. See: Mededelingenblad

I may need to clear off my build table and build something now  🙂

Steven