Child playing jenga brings down Guinness World Record attempt beer mat tower
A young girl brought down a giant tower made of 63,000 beer mats which took the artist a month to build.
Benjamin Klapper constructed the tower in the hope to set a new Guinness World Record, but it collapsed earlier this month.
The 49-year-old was trying to set a new Guinness World Record with the tower, before the young girl went to grab one of the coasters.
But very graciously, Benjamin said he did not blame the young girl, saying the tower partially collapsed under its own weight just before completion,.
Guests were also invited to play ‘Beer Mat Jenga’ with the remaining part of the tower.
Benjamin said: ‘It was submitted to Guinness World Records as a world record attempt.
‘I tried to break the existing record of 70,000 beer mats and a height of 9.8ft (3m).
(Picture: Jam Press/Benjamin Klapper)
‘Unfortunately, this didn’t work out, as the sculpture collapsed under its own weight two days before completion, seemingly without any external cause.
‘I worked on it for 28 days between 31 October and 8 December last year.
‘Each level took around four hours to complete and, on average, I built one level per day.
‘So in total, I spent about 120 hours constructing the sculpture.’
Benjamin, who comes from the town of Pulheim in Germany, built the tower in the Rhein-Center shopping centre in nearby Cologne.
The self-employed media engineer said the remaining ‘ruins’ of the sculpture were brought down on 10 January and the footage has gone viral.
He said: ‘I invited my project helpers to play ‘Beer Mat Jenga’ that day.
‘Each person took a turn removing a beer mat from the structure until it fell.
‘The winner was the daughter of one of my helpers.
‘She brought “Inside” down on her first attempt by pulling out one that was lying horizontally.
‘The livestreams, videos and photos of the construction and demolition have garnered millions of views on social media.’
Benjamin, who runs the media company MuVi 3D GmbH, said he started building beer coaster sculptures as a child.
‘Gradually, the constructions became larger and larger,’ he explained.
‘I completed my first large project 33 years ago. Since then, I’ve built large beer mat sculptures every few years.
‘And they are always created in public spaces.
‘That’s also my main motivation for creating these sculptures: viewers aren’t only presented with a finished work of art, they can witness the creation process as well.’
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