Lego Saint Basil's Cathedral

sjerakat

The Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful pieces of architecture to grace our planet. The color scheme is so unorthodox that it seems almost unreal. So naturally I think a Lego iteration would be magnificent. Especially considering the big architecture releases so far : Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Tower Bridge, Syndey Opera house are all very dull colors, greys, browns and beiges. But given the fact that the cathedral consists of many towers and spires, and an elaborate base, do you think a Lego set would be possible? Or plausible for that matter? After googling images I found this image. While its obviously much larger and more intricate than a retail release would ever be, it definitely got my hopes up for the future of the large architecture releases

Basta

Only issue is that Lego tend to stay away from religious buildings. Saying that it would be a great set if they did do it through.

LegoMom1

^Understood- but isn't this viewed now by most, more as an architectural "landmark" rather than a religious building? If so, chances would be good that it could become a future release, although, the shape and intricacies may prove too difficult to adapt to Lego bricks(?). I certainly hope that we may see it in the future. Fingers crossed.

BrickDancer

Looks fantastic as is and I would buy it. Problem though is if it has any chance of being made, the down scaling of it might not work out well. Looks like its at the perfect scale already in terms of build.

EKSam

@sjerakat

I agree, Saint Basil's Cathedral released as a Lego monument will be a dream come true. Too beautiful for words.

Schwallex

Funny how of all adjectives you had to pick unorthodox to describe the color scheme of an Orthodox church. (@[email protected])

Anyway, the color scheme is actually quite simple, that's the real kicker. Red bricks, white plaster, is all. It's only the onion domes where they go crazy with color, but the rest is very strict and straightforward.

It's also placed at an angle to the Beautiful Square (mistranslated as Red, which drives me nuts), so in most pictures it has that chaotic appearance, while in reality it is almost 100% symmetrical, as can be seen from this shot I snapped a few years back:



Needless to say, I've been waiting for this set ever since I came out of my Dark Ages, and in fact being able to MOC St. Basil's was one of the reasons why I became a parts collector. I just hope they won't do it in the usual red. That would be just wrong. It's not a fire station. They might actually need an all-new color. Or they opt for the original version and make it all white. (Just kidding, of course, nobody would recognize it anymore.)

@Basta is right that it's a religious building, but it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its official status is actually not that of a church but of a branch of the State Historical Museum, on the opposite side of the Beautiful Square (which itself is a gorgeous building, I might add).

And well, the Taj Mahal is a Muslim mausoleum, the Brandenburg Gate was used by the Nazis as a party symbol, and some of you might still remember that TLG did the Hagia Sophia a while back. Heck, they did the White House for crying out loud, which is a way stronger symbol for a whole number of not-so-neutral things than St. Basil's ever was. More to the point, the White House is a very current and very recent symbol, rather than an ancient monument.

So frankly, faux political correctness is not going to work as an excuse at this point. They should be doing St. Basil's, the Kremlin, and the Lenin Mausoleum. And more than enough people will be falling over their feet buying all three.