There are two new LEGO Architecture sets we haven’t talked about yet, both recreating buildings with great historical significance. The #21029 LEGO Architecture Buckingham Palace, and the #21030 LEGO Architecture United States Capitol Building. So let’s take a closer look. 🙂
➡ LEGO ARCHITECTURE BUCKINGHAM PALACE: Just like all LEGO Architecture sets, this the LEGO Architecture Buckingham Palace comes in a sleek black box, and with a high-quality booklet that talks about the design architecture and history of the building, and also contains the building instructions. This is the smaller of the two new sets, but it includes everything to recreate a mini version of the royal residence in a miniature scale. It also includes a tiny London bus and taxi. Here is the official description: Build a LEGO brick model of London’s official royal residence. This magnificent model focuses on the palace’s east wing with its famous balcony, forecourt and palace gates. A section of the Mall is also depicted, complete with a double-decker bus, black taxicab and the Victoria Memorial. The model has been designed to deliver an interesting and rewarding building experience and is suitable for display in the home and office. It has been developed for all with an interest in architecture, travel, history and design. Measures 3” (10cm) high, 7” (20cm) wide and 7” (19cm) deep. 780 pieces. Price: $49.99 – BUY HERE
➡ LEGO ARCHITECTURE UNITED STATES CAPITOL BUILDING: This set is quite large and substantial, and contains so many rare sand-green pieces! Here again, the included high-quality booklet contains information about the design, architecture and history of the building, and the building instructions. The model itself is very impressive, taking advantage of advanced building techniques to create the iconic shapes. Here is the official description: Discover the architectural secrets of the iconic United States Capitol Building with this amazing LEGO Architecture interpretation that focuses on the structure’s neoclassical style facade, steps and lawns, finished with a decorative “U.S. Capitol” nameplate. Remove the dome to access the rotunda interior depicting the National Statuary Hall, with columns, 8 statues and tiled floor. This model has been designed to deliver an interesting and rewarding building experience and is suitable for display in the home and office. It has been developed for all with an interest in travel, architectural culture, history and design. The scale of this model matches the #21022 LEGO Architecture Lincoln Memorial. Measures over 6” (16cm) high, 17” (44cm) wide and 5”(14cm) deep. 1032 pieces. Price: $99.99 – BUY HERE
When LEGO states that these models have been designed to deliver an interesting and rewarding building experience, they are not exaggerating. While LEGO Architecture sets are smaller than minifigure scale, they provide some of the most satisfying building experience. The focus is on getting the models as accurate as possible on a small scale. Thus LEGO Architecture sets tend to be parts-heavy, using pieces in very unusual and tricky ways. Lifting up a LEGO Architecture set is always a surprising experience, because they are quite heavy due to the density of small parts. In the video-reviews below, you can see the two latest LEGO Architecture sets in more detail.
If you have never built a LEGO Architecture set, it is kind of hard to explain why and how they are so different than regular LEGO sets. But I would say that they are more like a serious modeling kit rather than a building toy. In my experience, the best LEGO Architecture sets are in the price-range of $40-$60. Anything smaller might still look great, but it is too quick to put them together. With a mid-price set you get a great display model, and you can also have plenty of fun and learning during the building process. So the #21029 LEGO Architecture Buckingham Palace (or similarly priced sets) are excellent if you are new to LEGO Architecture.
Sets that are larger, like the newly released #21030 LEGO Architecture US Capitol Building, can be a tad tedious, and are definitely recommended for older builders. However these are the sets that look the best on display. The LEGO Architecture US Capitol Building is the third largest LEGO Architecture structure to date, after the #21010 LEGO Architecture Robie House released in 2011 (2276 pieces – price $199.99 – see above), and the #21017 LEGO Architecture Imperial Hotel released in 2013 (1188 pieces – price: $129.99 – see below). I’m not saying don’t get them if this is your first time with LEGO Architecture, but just be prepared that they may take longer to build than you might anticipate. And you will definitely learn some very-very interesting techniques.
I do recommend trying out at least one LEGO Architecture set, even if you are not that interested right now. Most LEGO fans are so focused on playsets and minifig-size buildings and vehicles that they forget the very serious modeling capabilities of LEGO. LEGO Architecture actually has a very large following, but they tend to be older builders and professionals. Pick a set that you think would be useful as a parts-pack if you end up disliking it. LEGO Architecture sets are excellent for getting a large number of small parts in very useful colors. The LEGO Architecture Buckingham Palace and the LEGO Architecture US Capitol Building, along with a number of previously released LEGO Architecture sets, are available under the LEGO Architecture section of the Online LEGO Shop.
So what do you think? How do you like these new LEGO Architecture sets? Do you have any LEGO Architecture sets already? Would you like to share your own thoughts and review on them? Feel free to discuss in the comment section below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
I heard that the Robie House was extremely tedious to build, due to all the stacked tiny plates…
Yes, that set is both tedious and painful, even though the final model is quite nice. It may be the reason there haven’t been a LEGO Architecture set of that size since.
I like the Capitol Building. Looks substantial enough and the sand green pieces are great. The Buckingham palace should have been a larger scale however. The design is fine, but for such an important building it could have been bigger.
We did the Eiffel Tower around Christmas time last year and I really liked it. The Capitol Building has my attention right now, especially after seeing the Roadshow Americana tour or whatever it was called. However like you said there’s a lot of competition for my Lego dollars right now and the architecture series don’t have any play value. They are pretty to look at and display but they are art. So they get moved down the wish list at this time of year.
Yes, LEGO Architecture sets are more like art or display pieces. Some people are really into them, but there is definitely a lot of competition for our dollars. I still recommend building at least one, as you have done. 🙂
Yes, I agree with Brickmaster about the size of Buckingham Palace. I was expecting it to be larger. I’m from the UK and am very disappointed with the set.
You guys over in the UK definitely deserve a larger Buckingham Palace. I agree that it should be twice as large. But then you guys already got Tower Bridge and Big Ben, so maybe LEGO decided to hold back a bit on any more UK based buildings. 😉
I love the architecture sets. They’re beautiful. I don’t care for the smaller items so much but items such as The Trevin Fountain and Buckingham Palace are beautiful. I have Architecure Studio which is great, but ideally needs a good extra pick a brick purchase to make the set useful.
If you like the LEGO Architecture sets, especially LEGO Architecture studio, you might want to check out Tom Alphin’s blog, if you haven’t done so already: http://tomalphin.com/
I wrote an article about him as well: http://thebrickblogger.com/2013/10/lego-architecture-studio-30-day-challenge/
And he also made these very useful labels for LEGO storage cabinets: http://thebrickblogger.com/2016/04/lego-brick-labels-for-your-storage-cabinets/