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.Gregg Pasquarelli, co-founder and partner at SHoP Architects in New York, built this futuristic cityscape.
Photo: Gregory ReidSnohetta found a delicate equilibrium with this boomerang-shaped tower. Photo: Gregory ReidSOM froze its unique LEGO infrastructure in a solid block of ice. Photo: Zack BurrisThe buildings were inspired by the postwar Japanese movement Metabolism, which fuses architecture with concepts of organic growth. Photo: Gregory ReidOne of the building's elegant spires. Photo: Gregory ReidA view from above. Photo: Gregory ReidSome of the custom, 3-D-printed bricks made for the job. Photo: Gregory ReidThe set includes translucent blocks as well as white ones. Photo: Gregory ReidDrone's eye view of SHoP's cluster. Photo: Gregory ReidA close-up of the tip of Snohetta's knotted tower. Photo: Gregory ReidSOM's ice box mid-melt. Photo: Zack BurrisAnother view of SOM's icy creation. Photo: Zack BurrisThe Architecture Studio set. Photo: Gregory ReidA sampling of the pieces included. When you open the Lego Architecture Studio set you’ll find 1,200 white and translucent bricks. What you won’t find are instructions for what to do with them.
Instead, the set includes a 200-page guidebook filled with architectural concepts, Lego exercises, and insights from several renowned firms–all intended to give budding builders a resource for developing their understanding of real world architecture. It’s a brilliant concept–a Lego product that doesn’t just encourage imagination but demands it. But it got us wondering: What if we put all those bricks in the hands of actual architects? We sent fresh sets to three leading firms–here’s what they came up with. Known for: Barclay’s Center — Brooklyn, NY Currently working on: Domino Sugar Refinery — Brooklyn, NY Gregg Pasquarelli, co-founder and partner at SHoP Architects in New York, has been a Lego fanatic all his life. “It’s why I became an architect, quite frankly,” he says. “I grew up in the boroughs of New York, and I could see the Manhattan skyline from my window as a child, and I literally sat there and mimicked all the buildings I could see in Lego.
It made me fall in love with building and architecture.” Pasquarelli jumped at the chance to do something with the new Studio set, ultimately piecing together a complex, futuristic cityscape inspired by Metabolism, a postwar movement from Japan that looked at architecture through the lens of organic growth and biological systems. In the process, he realized a lifelong dream: making his own custom curved Lego pieces. As a kid, his attempts at forging his own pieces were primitive. “I tried melting them on the stove to bend the parts. I used to saw the blocks apart. I did everything to try to push the limits,” he says. Working on this project some 40 years later, he took an easier route: the architect fabricated pieces with one of his studio’s 3-D printers. In no time, he’d made a series of wiggling blocks that stack to create the undulating, wave-like walls in his final design. Those elements are very much in step with SHoP’s real world work–many of their buildings include supple, curving forms.
But as Pasquarelli points out, oftentimes those curves are created from a multitude of straight, segmented pieces–something he thinks can be traced back to those childhood afternoons spent playing with his favorite toys. “That DNA–that you can take a straight line, or a basic block, or a simple element, and if you’re really clever about how you deploy it, you can make anything–I think that DNA and the way I think about buildings comes from playing with those Legos back in the late ’60s and early ’70s before they got all the specialized pieces… If you look at the Barclay’s Center, it looks like Lego blocks stacked up around each other, even as it makes that big curve. Known for: Oslo Opera House — Oslo, Norway Current project: A new arena for the Golden State Warriors basketball team — San Francisco, California After a freewheeling round of discussions, Snøhetta’s New York office settled on a unique challenge: building a Lego structure that captured the plastic bricks’ unique relationship to gravity.
“A Lego building has a lightness that a real building doesn’t have to contend with,” says Craig Dykers, Snøhetta’s co-founder. “We thought wouldn’t it be interesting to capture the feeling of gravity in a Lego block, where gravity actually has very little influence in many ways on its structure. Balance became a big discussion point, and how could we create something where you could feel the weight of a Lego holding something up.” Architecture isn’t just about building turrets or using all the pieces. Architect Marc-Andre Plasse became fascinated with this concept of balance, and tinkered with the design to find the most striking form. The question, he says, was “How far could we stretch the Lego in both directions, vertically and horizontally, and keep this in equilibrium?…We did a lot of studies to find tricks so we could go as long as possible on both sides. It was a trial and error process. There was a lot of breaking going on.” The final piece is as much sculpture as structure–a boomerang-shaped monument that shows how Lego can be used for more than standard castles and towers.
It’s economical use of the set’s offerings also proves an important point: You don’t have to use all the pieces. “As children, both boys and girls, we’re given stereotypical understandings of architecture,” Dykers says. “Boys are given the castles to make with Legos, and girls are given doll houses, which are often very domestic, very simple-minded understandings of what a house is. In this Lego study we’ve done, we’ve said architecture isn’t just about creating turrets or interesting doors or using all the pieces. It’s about the unseen, and gravity is the unseen.” Known for: Burj Khalifa — Dubai, United Arab Emirates Current project: One World Trade Center — New York City, New York SOM is the quintessential skyscraper firm. It’s responsible for current record-setter Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, as well as American icons like the Sears tower. Recently, it’s been working on a 100-year vision plan for the Great Lakes region. Inspired by that project–and the wintry environs of their Chicago office–SOM came up with a unique twist for their Lego structure: They froze it in a block of ice.