Comments on: LEGO Architecture Fallingwater and Guggenheim now available [News]

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:19:48 +0000

^ Interesting. Thanks for letting us know!

By: Bunbrick

Bunbrick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:38:18 +0000

@ Andrew: i just went to check Google News for what you and Thanel mentioned above, and i noticed that the link to TBB mentions Kyle Vrieze as the author. You have a ghost writer? ;-)

Nah, just teasing. Kyle got blogged about in the previous post though, as linked to above this post, and my wild guess would be that the Google News system looks for the nearest mention of “BY [name]“, which just happens to be in that previous post’s title. It’s no big deal, of course, but just seemed a funny enough little thing to point out. Your very first appearance on Google News, and there goes your proper credit! heh
Still, congrats on that first! :-)

By: blake

blake — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:35:59 +0000

These sets may be a bit more as they are Art. Yes, they must give some money to the set designer and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

I plan on getting both of these sets because I am a huge architecture fan and I love Wright’s style. If you don’t like the price then don’t buy.

By: eti

eti — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:04:24 +0000

That Falling Water set is a fail, to me, design-wise.
I was unfamiliar with the building (us Europeans have no culture, sorry…) so when I saw the set I assumed it was a building with an artificail pond on the roof.

Then I saw pictures of the real thing and realized that the ‘pond’ is a river. You just don’t see it in this set because both the rock the thing was built on and the house itself are tan, so you can’t tell what’s the ground and what’s the building. The rocks should have been gray, of course.

The price is not as outrageous as the smaller architecture sets but still you must be really fond of the designs to buy those, I think.

By: kunert

kunert — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:34:30 +0000

Fallingwater will make a fine parts source when it’s marked half-off after Christmas.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:11:13 +0000

^ Yup, that’s been in the works for a couple of months. :-)

By: Thanel

Thanel — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:42:05 +0000

Also, as far as I can tell this is the first time TBB has shown up on the Google News page. I always have a LEGO news category up, and was pleasantly surprised to see our name listed as an official news source.

By: Sibley

Sibley — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:55:54 +0000

I saw these for sale in the gift shop at Fallingwater a few weeks ago. I had assumed that the high price was (at least partly) a result of gift shop markup, so I’m a little surprised to see them at the same price from S@H.

By: worker201

worker201 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:58:46 +0000

I’m going to buy both of these, someday. Not just because I’m really impressed with the slick design of the architecture series, but also because these are 2 of the coolest looking sets Lego has put out in recent years. I don’t need a calculator or a BrickLink analysis to tell me that.

By: Mad Czech

Mad Czech — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:52:21 +0000

I bought the Empire State Building, which cost me more than 40 dollars after shipping. After building it, and seeing just how small it was, I priced it on Bricklink and found that I could have bought all the pieces for around 5 bucks. I would have just been missing the nameplate tile. Honestly, the supplementary material and the cool box design just don’t make up for the difference.
These kits are ideal for Museum Gift Shops, and I’m pretty sure their price point is designed for that. Not paying the shipping might be enough to make it worth it to me to buy them in a shop.

By: BJR

BJR — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:57:43 +0000

This price must be because of Wright and his Taliesin Preservation Foundation. Everything with his name on it is over priced.

By: Puddleglum

Puddleglum — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:19:00 +0000

Fallingwater could have been a world-class tan parts pack, but the price really hurts it there. An interesting experiment I like to do when new sets get inventoried on BrickLink, is to see what the total 6-months sales average is for the parts in the set. (Note: this really only works for sets that don’t have new parts and figs) It gives a good measure of the relative rarity/desirability of the parts in the set. In this case, the value was $95. Meaning, you might as well just buy whatever parts you want in the set off of BrickLink. By comparison, the value for Medieval Market Village is $240.

By: Drizdar

Drizdar — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:28:51 +0000

I’m guessing they cost so much because TLG is outsourcing to Adam Reed Tucker for the design, so they probably have to pay him royalty costs. Also, I believe the sets come with Information booklets and other assorted memorabilia so that you can learn more about the building. That, and the fact that they probably have a limited run is why these cost so much.

By: David4

David4 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:18:00 +0000

I think the sets have been up for a little while now. I still don’t understand how these sets, with little pieces and no mini-figures, can cost so much.

By: notenoughbricks

notenoughbricks — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:05:48 +0000

The part per price ratio is a little off but Tucker, LEGO, and Wright all need to be paid. For us LEGO people though it seems to come with a lot of tan and clear parts.