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Buildable In Lego
In the Trivia category, we have a connection named Buildable in Lego : "WHS that are available as models from the official Lego Shop". It currently covers 15 locations across 12 sites. Unsurprisingly, these are among the most visited and best-known cities and landmarks globally, such as Paris, Rome, and the Taj Mahal. It’s a coincidence that they are also WHS.
Lego Architecture
All WHS Buildable in Lego are part of the Lego Architecture construction sets, aimed at an 18+ audience.
Officially they are split into the Landmark (Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, etc) and Architect ( FLW , Le Corbusier , etc) series. Additionally, there are the Skylines , essentially a row of iconic buildings from one city. Here we find some doubles, that are also available as single landmark sets: Sydney Opera House is also part of the Sydney skyline, the Eiffel Tower of the Paris one, Big Ben in London, and the Statue of Liberty in New York. I even recognized Mt. Fuji in the Tokyo skyline .
The product range started in 2008. Most products have since been retired, and have become more costly (if you can find them for sale at all). I know of people that leave the products in the box and save them as investments!
The number of pieces included in each set seems to have steadily grown over the years. FLW’s Robie House and the Taj Mahal have over 2000 pieces each, but the earlier ones only a few hundred.
Building The Colosseum
In 2020, the biggest LEGO set (in terms of # of pieces) of all time was released: Rome’s Colosseum. It has 9,036 pieces, weighs 8 kg and costs about 500 EUR. I bought it last June as a present to myself – mostly as I could see it as a WH souvenir on display in a corner of my living room. Fortunately, I had a spare table of exactly the right size.
The only thing was that I had to put it together first.
In the huge box were 4 smaller boxes, labeled I, II, III, and IIII (the Romans used IIII as much as IV for 4, I learned from the accompanying booklet). They contained 40 larger plastic bags, with smaller ones in them. I did one bag a day when I felt like it. Because of its size, it is a bit repetitive, but I found the work had meditative qualities. It is a bit like doing jigsaw puzzles.
Lego bloggers do not prepare you for the mistakes you make along the way, and the wobbly lower part of the construction. One has to click the vertical building slices together to create the oval shape. After some ‘clicks’ I broke parts of the construction and had to put the pieces together again.
The last two bags I found really satisfying, as you will do the finishing touches like adding trees and little cars. A couple of gladiators would have been a nice addition. The result is impressive and unmistakable The Colosseum.
I don’t think I have enough space to display another set, but Machu Picchu or Chichen Itza could be great successors.
Do you own any of the WHS that are Buildable in Lego? Which one? And what did you do with it after you completed the build?
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