LEGO® Big Ben celebrates Victorian London’s greatest landmark

bricksan

Just posted this official press release on my site:

BILLUND, Denmark – Big Ben, one of the UK’s most recognizable buildings and a global symbol of Victorian London and the Gothic Revival style, has been recreated as the latest set in the LEGO® Architecture series.

Big Ben, officially known as the Clock Tower, has stood at the north-eastern corner of the Palace of Westminster in London for more than 150 years. It was designed by the unlikely team of Classical architect Charles Barry and Gothic Revival pioneer Augustus Pugin and completed in 1859.

Big Ben is the fourteenth model in the LEGO Architecture range, which uses the LEGO brick to interpret the designs of iconic architecture around the world. It is the first model to be designed by Rok Zgalin Kobe from Slovenia who joins Adam Reed-Tucker as a LEGO architect.

“The most challenging in creating this model was representing the richness of 19th century Gothic Revival architecture in a scale usually more appropriate for modern or contemporary architecture of smooth surfaces and clean lines,” said Rok Zgalin Kobe.

Charles Barry won the competition to build the new Palace of Westminster in January 1836. His initial designs were without the clock tower that would become known as Big Ben. As his own style was more Classical than the increasingly popular Gothic Revival, Barry asked for assistance from Augustus Pugin, a leading light of the movement that left its indelible mark on the Victorian era around the world. The design of the interior of the palace and the clock tower are thought to be his work.

LEGO Architecture products features well-known buildings, and the work of important architects Aimed at inspiring future architects, engineers and designers as well as architecture fans around the world, the range contains a booklet featuring step-by-step building instructions that is prefaced by exclusive, archival history, information and photographs of each iconic building, its design origin, its architect and its architectural features.

The LEGO 21013 Big Ben is available for purchase from June 1 in LEGO brand retail stores, LEGOLAND Stores and online at http://shop.lego.com/. The product is designed for ages 12+ and includes a booklet with facts and history about Big Ben. Recommended retail price is $29.99 or €29.99.

For more information about LEGO Architecture visit http://architecture.lego.com

Sherlockbones

They got it wrong, the bell is Big Ben :P

Looks nice, I may pick it up when it's out

Redbullgivesuwind

Got to be honest it looks terrible. I think I will pass.

andhe

Yeah just seen this on hothbricks. Isn't it a lot smaller than people expected? What with the clock face piece in the town hall being a almost exact replica of the real 'Big Ben' (which is the bell, not the tower, but I guess has entered into common parlance as the actual clock tower).

airways09

the tower is called St. Stephens tower

prevere

I think I'll build my own for about $10. Would love to see a version that's Tower Bridge size.

CCC

^^ No it is not. St Stephens tower is in the middle of the houses of parliament.

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/enquiries/

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it is ugly. It is about as realistic as the one in Big Bentley Bust Out.

dougts

Oh I think you are being a bit unfair. Given the scale chosen, and the pieces available, I think they did a pretty credible job actually.

hoyatables

When I saw the thread, my first thought was that this was going to be "Tower Bridge" scale. That would be really cool.

dougts

^agreed, but too much of the same I think. same color pallette, same architectural stylings, etc. I would think LEGO would want it's next 4000+ piece model to be more distinct from the last one.

CCC

It wouldn't be so bad if the clock faces were inset so they don't protrude forwards.

dougts

^ yeah, the clock faces is the most obvious complaint.

caperberry

This press release contains a grammatical mistake, this must be a fraud.
;O)

timinchicago

"Aimed"?

airways09

@CCC, my bad, i blame the gf for that one!!

weinner

I'm not to impressed

graphite

^^^ what is wrong with "Aimed"?

timinchicago

Nothing wrong with "Aimed" except there is no period preceeding it and yet it is capitalized.

caperberry

Yup. And "LEGO Architecture products features well-known buildings" should say "feature". Anyhoo... enough of my sarcastic pedantry...

Overall, I'm not pleased with the design. There are some really nice features though, such as the grille tiles, but the protruding clock faces and the choice of round bricks for the corners really stand out. For such a scale, it's understandable why those decisions were taken.

It might be a nice little build though and I should have the parts so I might give it a try when the instructions are available.

AFFOL_Shellz_Bellz

I would happily spend more money for the much larger sets with more detail. This just doesn't impress me much more than the Sydney Opera House did, and that was the first architecture set I didn't buy.

SiE

Pretty ugly. I wish they would bring out a decent sized one

Jasen

@AFFOL_Shellz_Bellz agreed. The SOH was pretty crappy.

It would be probably cheaper to Bricklink this set, although I think I have most of the pieces anyway.
I don't mind this set for what it is but yea a bigger one would be out of the question given the repeatitive building technique.
Those saying "not enough detail - needs to be bigger" will also be the ones saying "the build was too much of the same"
Take it as it is.

Multiversal

Well, if I am going to get any architecture set, this is definitely it. I think that, in spite of scale differences, it complements the TB pretty well. And it's definitely a great representation of the real tower, at that scale. This takes the title from Brandenburger Tor as my favourite affordable Architecture set. =)

Istokg

Did someone say they wish this was a model in London Bridge scale? ;-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/6520663859/in/photostream

This restored glued display model dates to circa 1963-65. In 1966 the 1x1 round bricks were remodeled with a tapered base. This model has the older pre-1966 1x1 round bricks.

AFFOL_Shellz_Bellz

^ Wow! Would love the instructions for this.

Istokg

Unfortunately the instructions for old glued display models are no longer known (model shops didn't keep the instructions).

AFFOL_Shellz_Bellz

Sad!

Istokg

Yes... also with the exception of the Billund model shop... all the other shops are long gone... documentation and all. The Wrexham Wales model shop for British LEGO Ltd. (1960-92) is long gone... ditto for the Detroit USA (1961-65) model shop, the Loveland Colorado USA (1965-72) model shop, and the Stratford Ontario Canada (1965-85) model shop. Now we have model shops at the Legolands (Carlsbad, Windsor, Gunzburg)... and again Billund is still there. Maybe Billund kept the records of model instructions... but we're not privy to them.