Community
Under the covers of LEGO’s Fender amp and Atari console
One model opens onto tubes and wiring; the other opens onto a room. Each offers a different answer to what belongs inside a replica.
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Stories for people who love bricks.
LEGO Masters, new sets, collecting, fan events and the industry behind the hobby. Original features, practical guides and clearly labeled analysis, with references and real photography.
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Community
Why LEGO’s football table needs a bench and its jazz quartet doesn’t
Two Ideas sets use a group of figures as their subject. One ensemble depends on fixed relationships; the other leaves room for substitutions.
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Community
Two LEGO trains ask you to stand in different places
The Orient Express puts its staff and passengers behind removable roofs. The Crocodile locomotive leaves its most revealing movement down by the rails.
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Classic sets
What a 90-second Jaws film can do that the LEGO Orca can’t
LEGO marked the Orca’s release with a miniature film. The screen and the shelf put very different jobs in the hands of the audience.
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LEGO Masters
A sheet of paper separates two LEGO replicas of analog machines
Steve Guinness’s typewriter accepts a real page. The Polaroid supplies its own pictures. Those choices change what each machine asks its owner to do.
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Sets
You can read the route on the roof of LEGO’s Defender
A spare wheel, a winch and a set of traction plates each suggest a different kind of trouble ahead for the little green Land Rover.
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Collectibles
A crank for Yoshi’s run and a dial for his appetite
Two controls let a builder decide when Yoshi takes a stride and when he sticks out his tongue in LEGO’s Super Mario World display.
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Collectibles
One carriage holds three school years on LEGO’s Hogwarts Express
Three lit compartments carry Harry through his school years. The fourth scene gives his place on the departing train to his son.
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Community
Lakwena gave Buzz Lightyear and Winnie the Pooh the same castle window
For Disney’s centenary, the London artist built a window tall enough for a family to stand beneath. Her own children placed the last bricks.
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Architecture
There’s a second fountain in LEGO’s Trevi Fountain
Oceanus takes the central arch in set 21062. A much smaller basin at his side brings a different Roman story into the model.
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Building & Parts
The vase LEGO left out of its Wildflower Bouquet
A launch photograph sets two glass vessels on a windowsill. Their different shapes explain one of the most consequential choices in set 10313.
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Collectibles
A replica in Billund helped LEGO find the yellows in Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
Designer Stijn Oom had a life-size reference from Amsterdam and a material the painter never used: a petal that casts its own shadow.
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Community
Sixteen extra studs changed who could live above Tudor Corner
Given two copies of the same modular set, a fan builder widened the street, enlarged a kitchen and found a difficult new spot for the chimney.
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Collectibles
A left shoe, a right shoe and six takes on LEGO’s adidas Superstar
Seventeen extra elements let builders choose a foot. The launch artists went further, testing how much of the sneaker could change while its outline held.
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Technic
The stand did factory work on LEGO’s BMW M 1000 RR
Designer Samuel Tacchi gave the Technic superbike a place to stand while its engine was still exposed. That decision changed how a builder could approach the machine.
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