Sydney Opera House™37 ReviewsFIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISBuildingsCreatorRecreate one of the most iconic buildings in the world!The new Sydney Opera House model, for LEGO's Creator line. Image: LEGOThe building’s iconic sails were the toughest detail to capture. Image: LEGOLead designer Jamie Berard said it was the most challenging model of his 6-year LEGO career. Image: LEGOThe staircase is especially gorgeous. The Sydney Opera House, Jørn Utzon’s iconic arts center, is a marvel of modern architecture. Now it’s a marvel of modern Lego, too. With a new set, available this September for $320, Australia’s best-known building joins the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal as part of Lego’s high-end Creator line. It’s not the first time Lego’s tackled the landmark–a different model was made available last year through the Architecture series, but it only used a paltry 270 pieces. It kind of looked like the real thing, if you squinted. With 2,989 bricks, the new model is astoundingly detailed, capturing subtle touches like the gray lines running through the venue’s main staircase.
And where the older set was pegged for ages 12 and up–literally child’s play–this one comes with an “expert” designation, recommended only for builders at least 16 years of age. If you’re legally allowed to operate a motor vehicle, but only with a parent riding shotgun, this thing might make your head explode. Building a masterpiece replica from scratch is a different level of crazy. Of course, putting the model together with the instructions is one thing. Building a masterpiece replica from scratch is an entirely different level of crazy. That task falls to Lego’s designers, an indefatigable group of tinkerers, many of whom trained as architects themselves. Even with a handful of Masters degrees and access to every Lego brick in existence, though, the Opera House presented a unique challenge. Jamie Berard, Design Manager Specialist for the Creator line, says it was the hardest model he’s worked on in his 6-year career designing products for the company. “Lego bricks are quite good at making buildings with straight walls and sloping roofs,” he explains.
“Creating a piece of architecture with so many compound curves and angled walls really pushed the boundaries of what our bricks are capable of.” Unsurprisingly, the building’s signature sails were the toughest nut to crack. First the team tried standard plates and bricks, but the result was too blocky. Then they tried sloping bricks, but the gaps in between the individual pieces took away from the fluid form. Ultimately, the designers settled on a pair of sloping bow pieces to capture the expressiveness of the original architecture. Incredibly, in total, it took nearly half as long to figure out how to render the feature in tiny plastic blocks as it did to complete the real thing. “Considering it took engineers eight years to figure out how to make the real Opera House sails, I feel quite proud that it only took us three,” Berard says. But simply building a model that looks like the real thing isn’t enough. The designers also have to make sure it’s fun to put together.
‘I feel quite proud that it only took us three years.’ “Our philosophy has always been to deliver a world-class building experience first and foremost,” Berard explains. To offer some measure of sanity to builders, the new Opera House employs a modular design, where individual pieces can be assembled independently and snapped together, Voltron-style, into the final structure. After all, Lego isn’t just about the product, but the process, too. “We are not a modeling company looking to create static exact replicas of anything,” Berard says. “Hopefully people love a model like the Sydney Opera House not only because they think it looks impressive, but also because they want to know how it’s built. That’s when we know we got it just right.”See all 53 reviewsWorth the cost for me.My grandson loved it!Five StarsBeautiful Lego setGreat product. Received it in a timely manorChallenging!Five StarsAwesome build, enjoyed every minute of itFive StarsFive Stars←PreviousNext→
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72 Review: The LEGO Build-It Book: More Amazing Vehicles 74 Review: Beautiful LEGO® 76 Review: 10234 Sydney Opera House™ 78 Review: 70006 Cragger´s Command Ship 80 Review: 42009 Mobile Crane MK II 83 Review: 42023 Construction Crew 85 Review: 42024 Container Truck 87 Review: 10243 Parisian Restaurant 91 Great creators of the world: Thorsten Bonsch 96 Exhibition: “Toys of all times” 97 Pillars of the Community: Brickjournal 100 Desmontados by Arqu medes 101 How to collaborate with us 101 Our collaborators on the InternetHome > Awesomeness > By Joe Warner on November 14, 2014 Back in the 1990s, LEGO was the struggling toy brick company that adults looked back on nostalgically, but couldn’t make a buck. Until 1999, when LEGO started to license the brick out of it. Then things started rocking, and 15 years later, LEGO has produced a dizzying array of licensed sets from a number of A-list pop culture properties including Star Wars (one of the first), Harry Potter, Batman, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Simpsons and even Back to the Future.
The list goes on. This year saw the introduction of The LEGO Movie licensed sets, which was kind of like, whoa, dude, it’s like turning in on itself! But LEGO is not all about the licensed toys. There’s still the classic and long-running LEGO City, LEGO Space, LEGO Castle and LEGO Technic themes, as well as more recent popular themes like LEGO Architecture, LEGO Creator, LEGO Mindstorms, LEGO Ninjago, LEGO Legends of Chima and the girl-friendly LEGO Friends. LEGO Pirates are also coming back in 2015 after a 6-year hiatus. There’s even LEGO Ideas (formerly known as CUUSOO) which is a program that produces fan-submitted ideas through a Kickstarter-like process. That’s how the LEGO Minecraft and Back to the Future sets were born. We are truly now in the Golden Age of LEGO, and everything is awesome! Let’s take a look at 20 incredibly awesome official LEGO sets from the past 10 years. (Hey, we had to limit this somehow. Otherwise, this list would be huge!)
Special thanks to Brickset for their awesome LEGO site and passionate users! Taken from this year’s big hit The LEGO Movie, Metal Beard’s Sea Cow is an over-the-top mishmash numbering over 2,700 pieces. It’s the largest set from the series and is already considered one of the best ships ever produced by LEGO. It also includes the all-important double-decker couch. Release year: 2014 | Price: $250 – Amazon Released in 2011, this Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars set contains over 3,000 pieces and is no longer in production. eBay is your only hope to find it now. Release year: 2011 | Price: varies (not in production) – eBay Born out of the LEGO CUUSOO site (now known as LEGO Ideas), the iconic BTTF DeLorean Time Machine is a fan-submitted design that became an official retail set. Numbering 401 pieces, the set features the famous gull-wing doors, the flux capacitor, Marty McFly and his skateboard and of course Doc Brown. This is a great time to be a LEGO fan!
Release year: 2013 | Price: $35 – Amazon A treat for movie buffs, this 2,196-piece Expert set is inspired by movie palaces of yesteryear. It’s part of the Modular Buildings series where you can piece together different sets to form a city block.Price: $150 – Amazon Indiana Jones and LEGOs: awesome! This fun 554-piece set recreates the iconic boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark and contains a minifigure for Jock, Indy’s pilot as well as one for the unfortunate Satipo who famously implores Indy to “throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!” Yeah, that didn’t end well. Release year: 2007 | Price: varies (not in production) – eBay Since its release in late 2012 to coincide with the release of The Hobbit, the 652-piece Unexpected Gathering set has won praise from LEGO and Tolkien fans alike. It’s as detailed as the movie scene it recreates is long. Which is to say, it’s very detailed. Release year: 2012 | Price: $63 – Amazon
Containing nearly 3,000 pieces and priced over $300, the Sydney Opera Set is a faithful rendering of the landmark structure, aimed squarely at adult fans of LEGOs, aka AFOLs. Standing nearly a foot tall, the set doesn’t have minifigures and the instruction booklet contains text and illustrations about the history and construction of the opera house.Price: $320 – Amazon Just a year after it was introduced, the Ewok Village, with its near 2,000-piece count, is already in the firmament of greatest Star Wars LEGO sets ever made. Say what you will about the cinematic worthiness of Ewoks, but they make very entertaining toys. Price: $250 – Amazon With no specific instructions and over 1,200 white and transparent pieces, the Architecture Studio is aimed at the builder who likes to use their own inspiration to create memorable LEGO sets. You get 73 different types of building bricks and a thick book that teaches you about architectural concepts. This is a long way from Star Wars LEGOs!
Price: $160 – Walmart Containing 865 pieces and 8 minifigures, the classic Black Seas Barracuda set is so good that it got re-released in 2002, 13 years after it was first introduced, and thus makes it eligible to appear on our list! Release year: 2002 | Price: varies (not in production) – Amazon Marketplace Another Star Wars set, another Ultimate Collector Series toy, 2,500 pieces of pure awesome. Release year: 2010 | It has just recently gone out of production, but the 2064-piece Haunted House is destined to become a sought-after commodity among LEGO builders. It’s been praised for the attention to detail, creativity, unique minifigures and the way it opens like a dollhouse. Consisting of over 1,000 pieces, the Medieval Market Village is a tavern, blacksmith’s workshop and open market with various animal figures, including two cows and a rat. For Castle fans, this is considered the best of the modern sets. Release year: 2009 |
Price: varies (not in production) – Amazon Marketplace This set boasts a mind-blowing 5,195 pieces, giving it the second-highest piece count after the Taj Mahal (#3 on our list). It’s also the largest sized model (33″ x 22″ x 8.3″) and most expensive set ($500 retail) ever made commercially available by LEGO. Release year: 2007 | As featured last year right here on The Checkout, the Tower of Orthanc is a ridiculously awesome set featuring six floors containing over 2,300 pieces and Treebeard the Ent among many other delights. It’s an amazing-looking LEGO set.Price: $250 – Amazon With the highest piece count of any LEGO set ever at a jaw-dropping 5,922 bricks in all, the Taj Mahal had to be on this list. The amazingly detailed and realistic set is a challenge for even the most seasoned builders. Even if you’re not a fan of LEGOs or even toys, this is one you just have to see for yourself. Release year: 2008 | This Advanced Model LEGO set actually moves and plays music like a real carousel and has over 3,000 pieces.