In 2008, LEGO introduced a dedicated “Architecture” product line aimed at appealing to a more mature audience. These sets are a little different from your everyday set: They come in a thick premium box with distinctive black packaging, and the instruction manuals are better too: they are small softcover books with many pages dedicated to architect, design process and history of each building. These are premium sets targeted at adults who grew up playing with LEGO, but most of them are only a little more expensive than a mainstream LEGO set. Now that 21 sets have been released in the series, I wanted to put together a short article which highlights some of the very best models in the series. I decided to focus on those sets under 50$, since they are reasonably priced, make great gifts and most of them are excellent models. (There are only 6 models which cost more than 50$. Those sets are harder to find in stores, since they are a niche products for advanced builders with deeper pockets.)
I tried to quantify each set on a variety of metrics ranging from value, quality of completed model, advanced building techniques, inclusion of interesting parts. This helped me identify the sets which stood out to me as excellent, and I have explained what makes them stand out. I also called out the models which make great “puzzle builds”, in that you can complete the model using only the photo on the front of the box. All five of these sets are excellent, so you should feel comfortable buying whichever set is most appealing to you. No other set in the series so perfectly evokes a famous world landmark using so few pieces. This model is a poster child for efficiency; it is built out of just 57 bricks, the least parts of any set in the series. This does result in a high price per part, although in fairness, many of the parts included in the set are large or obscure parts. I should note that this model does require you to cut three parts to the right length. This felt like a very un-LEGO thing to do, so I recommend that you do it quickly and carefully, and forget that it happened.
This is a pretty fun model to try and build using only the photo on the front of the box. It is not as easy as something more rectangular like the Empire State Building, but it should be pretty easy for most experienced LEGO builders to complete. It makes a great model to display on your desk as most people don’t immediately recognize that it is built of LEGO. Maybe you’ve never been to Seattle, but want a similarly iconic landmark? The Eiffel Tower is also a great set, although it is nearly twice as expensive as The Space Needle. The Space Needle is a great small set which I recommend for it’s elegant finished look. If you are looking for a simple model or a less expensive set, look no further than the Empire State Building. This model does a great job of capturing the overall shape of this classic New York City skyscraper in just 77 pieces. It is a pretty straightforward model to build without using the directions, so I encourage that you try this way of building, you may never want to use the instructions again!
It is worth nothing that the Sears Tower (recently renamed Willis Tower) is a similarly excellent small LEGO Skyscraper, but I think the Empire State Building is a slightly more recognizable model, and the Sears Tower set has been discontinued. The Empire State building is the best of the small sets. This is one of the better looking models in the series, and with a price less than 10 cents per part, it is a good value as well. I really liked that this model includes several good examples of SNOT construction, where bricks are assembled such that the Studs are Not On the Top. I thoroughly enjoyed building this model without using the directions, although it was a good challenge. It took me a couple hours to build, and I only made a few minor mistakes since I couldn’t see exactly how the roof was assembled, and I only used the photo on the front of the box, so I had to guess about the back corner of the model. Big Ben is the perfect mid-sized set for someone who has built a smaller model like the Empire State Building, but doesn’t want to spend 50$ for the White House or try to build a model as complex as the UN Headquarters yet.
Big Ben is a great mid-sized set, and a good value. This set is more than just one building, it captures a collection of buildings in a beautiful scene. The UN Headquarters is an exceptional model in the series, as it employs the most advanced building techniques of all the sets in this price range. This results in the most detailed small model in the whole series. This model is a great way to learn many advanced building techniques; major sections of the model are built using SNOT techniques and by leveraging 1/2 stud offsets. For these reasons, it is the only model I’ve listed which is impractical to build without using the instructions. (I was able to build the main tower and most of the left-facing wall, but didn’t have photos from enough angles to finish the model.) The UN Headquarters teaches you how to build better LEGO models. I can’t say enough good things about this model. It beautifully captures a famous world landmark, and employs some nice building techniques along the way.
I like that the model uses some advanced building techniques for the windows and the columns. I love that the model is unapologetically LEGO in it’s design, with visible studs on the grass, chimneys and the cute blocky trees. For me, the set also represents the hardest model in the series which you can practically build without using the directions. I did allow myself to use the photo on the back of the box, since the White House has a curved back porch. It took me many days to build, although I just worked on it for a few minutes at a time. The White House is my favorite model in the entire Architecture series. I hope that you found this article useful, and are inspired to give a model in the Architecture series a try! If you are interested in Architecture but would rather build your own models, check out my 30-day challenge based on the excellent Lego Architecture Studio set.In order to compile a list of the biggest and most challenging Lego sets, it was necessary to narrow down the criteria.
First, the sets have to be mass produced by LEGO. In other words, we’re not considering any giant custom sets like the 6-meter Death Star Trench or insane 150,000 piece recreation of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings. Second, we excluded expandable sets such as the Modular Building series that you can keep adding on to like the Town Hall (10224), Green Grocer (10185), and the newly released Palace Cinema (10232) that can be combined together to lay out enormous Lego city scenes. Furthermore, to define what we mean by “biggest” the list considers those Lego sets with the largest amounts of pieces and/or final completed size of the set. As far as “challenging,” most of the sets listed below are suggested for builders aged 16 or older, although I’ve personally seen kids half that age cranking out 1,000+ piece sets with hardly any difficulty. Some of the sets listed below are still available at Lego stores worldwide, while some are out of production. But you may find retired sets listed for outrageous prices on Amazon or eBay, though, those ones are arguable the best LEGO sets.
Once Lego stops selling an item, or if produced in limited quantities, third parties grab those products and jack up the price depending on demand. You’ll find Lego sets a purchase limit per customer on certain items. Last week we created a list of must-have movie-themed Lego sets. Now, here’s a list of the most challenging and biggest lego sets, ordered somewhat subjectively but with consideration of total number of pieces combined with level of difficulty. By the way, the number in the parenthesis represents the Item Number in case you decide to go on a hunt for one of these Lego sets. It’d be hard to argue against Lego’s Star Wars Collector’s Millennium Falcon as being one of the most challenging and largest Lego sets (it also probably ranks as our #1 LEGOs for adults). The $499 Millennium Falcon is suggested for ages 16-years and older but younger kids can probably get through it with some supervision. The highly detailed scale model is made up of a whopping 5,195 pieces but only 5 mini-figures including Luke, Princess Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and a stormtrooper.
Why the set doesn’t include C-3PO and R2-D2 mini-figures is sort of a mystery (weren’t they on the Falcon during the mission to rescue Leia?), but nevertheless the ship itself is more than enough to focus on. The Collector’s Millennium Falcon was released in 2007 and retired in 2010, but remains the most-expensive mass-produced Lego set to date. If you need a little break from science fiction-based Star Wars sets you can jump into an architectural project building the Taj Mahal. The $299 set gives you more bang for your buck than the Collector’s Millennium Falcon, boxing a total of 5,922 pieces (about 700 more than the Falcon). What also makes this set a bit more of a challenge for builders is that all the pieces are all generally the same color. This makes it especially difficult for those who like to dump all their Lego pieces into a pile rather than build bag-by-bag. Puzzle builders will attest to the difficulty of puzzles that don’t vary too much in color or patterns.