Tag Archives: Town

Towns in the world of LEGO have everything cities in the real world do — police stations, fire engines, trains, hairdressers and veterinarians. Check out all the beautiful buildings and vehicles we’ve featured here on The Brothers Brick.

Rosenwald Apartments are impressive and tiny

Microscale is challenging in its own right, despite it’s tiny tiny size. Rocco Buttliere is a master of this impressive scale, and we’ve featured his work before, notably with his Houses of Parliament and 40 Wall Street.

This newest addition to his tiny empire is certainly more understated than what we’ve featured before and no less impressive. The Rosenwald Apartments, named after former president of Sears and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, feature lovely landscaping and the tiniest art deco I’ve ever seen. I particularly love the use of the grill tile, held in place presumably by sheer will, that gives the impression of tiny windows. It’s very effective!

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Push it real good

There are a lot of sweet details on this vintage bulldozer model from Jakeof. Like the dual chain treads and their associated mechanical bits. And the subtle stickers that jazz up the side windows. And the little bits of cut flex tube everywhere. And the door handle, which looks like it might be the head of a minifig hammer. But the real highlight is the extremely old school brick used for the rear window. It’s amazing what you can do with a wide variety of parts and a little imagination.

Carousel! Carousel! CAROUSEL!

Justin Winn‘s spacemen have been tirelessly going about their day-to-day jobs and even studying for advanced space degrees. So it’s good to see these hard-working minifigs take down their hair and have fun from time to time. Justin spacified Set 10196: The Grand Carousel and his new version is awesome. It has a ton of spacey details but my favorite bits are those custom printed space logo sails that form the carousel roof. They’d look pretty sweet on a space ship too, right?

Vintage fire truck wails to the rescue

I love a good fire engine. While I cringe a bit at seeing a fire truck called “vintage” when it’s from an era I remember well — I clearly recall watching big fire engines go by during the 1979 4th of July parade in Freeport, Maine — this hook and ladder truck by Glaktek is gorgeous to behold. A new take on one of his earlier builds, both builds also fit within the scale, parts selection, and basic building techniques of official LEGO sets, which makes its unique shape all the more beautiful.

When you’re lost at sea, the Coast Guard Sea King is the best sight you’ll see

Builder ER0L brings us this remarkably realistic version of the famous Sikorsky/Westland Sea King helicopter, used by the United States Coast Guard in rescue operations. Beyond simply making the model look accurate though, ERoL has fully motorized it using LEGO Power Functions.

LEGO street scene inspired by Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

This street scene by Maarten W was inspired by the architecture of the Old Town in Scotland’s capital city. The Royal Mile runs from Edinburgh Castle on its plug of volcanic rock, down the ridge, to Holyrood Palace. It’s one of the most famous streets in the world and Maarten has brilliantly captured its picturesque architecture.

There are some lovely LEGO techniques on show here. Check out the blend of bricks used on the left-hand and central buildings, creating an excellent sense of texture without looking scruffy. And the details in the arch above the church door are a fantastic little touch.

I’m an Edinburgh native myself, and I used to run a pub right behind the Tron Kirk (the inspiration for Maarten’s church here). As a result, I really appreciate how well this model captures the spirit and character of my home town. Great stuff.

Welcome to the Volcano Island

Olive Seon brings us this awesome backdrop to showcase the new LEGO City Volcano Explorers theme. The South Korean pro builders always turn LEGO’s official sets into the coolest dioramas with fantastic custom terrain, and the erupting volcano here is a magnificent sight to behold.

If IKEA was Danish, and made of LEGO

Norwegian builder birgburg creates fantastic scenes of brick-built domesticity and then takes excellent photos of them. The resulting images remind me of IKEA catalogs. I loved this kitchen viewed from outside, although the title — “Sneaking around in the garden at night” — suggests more sinister goings-on than you might expect.

A scroll through birgburg’s photos will be rewarded with further gems, like this sun-dappled porch scene. I want to be slouched in that seat, soaking up the rays, and sipping an ice-cold Cuervopolitan from that glass…

A place downtown to meet your Friends

I love seeing Friends colors and sets incorporated into awesome builds, and Allan Corbeil has done a magnificent job with that. He’s given us a lovely Cafe Corner modular building, based on 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar.

While I love the black and white old-timey pictures, I have to share the stand-alone shot, too. The Juice Bar looks just lovely built into the ground floor of this brick building. The detail for the top floor is quite lovely and very reminiscent of the details that LEGO puts into other modular sets, particularly 10243 Parisian Restaurant and 10251 Brick Bank.

Pop into the Top Slice Bakery for a delicious pastry

There’s a longstanding tradition — especially here on the West Coast of the U.S. — of novelty architecture that often reflects the specific purpose of the building, from teapots to root beer barrels. Andrew Tate has built a lovely bakery in the shape of a toaster, complete with slices of bread popping up. And the coffee stand next door is, naturally, in the shape of a coffee mug. Andrew makes great use of rounded bricks and slopes throughout his scene, which even includes a brick-built street.

Udine, Italy’s Piazza San Giacomo in LEGO

Luca Di Lazzaro and the Italian LEGO club ItLUG have built a minifig-scale model of San Giacomo square in Udine, in northeastern Italy. Featuring over a dozen buildings surrounding the square and populated by numerous minifigs, the model even includes a row of Italian supercars for the minifigs to drive away in.

The model was on display in Udine at an event last month, where the mayor of Udine posed with Luca and the LEGO version of their home town.

Click to see more photos

LEGO cones make perfect Spanish roof tiles

I’ve been waiting for more people to utilize o0ger‘s roof building technique since it was posted last December. As o0ger showed us then, when you alternate the direction of stringed one-by-one cones they make a pretty snazzy-looking Spanish tile rooftop. At least one other builder has incorporated o0ger’s technique into a build of their own. And now the technique’s inventor himself has decided to show us how it’s done, with this fantastic harbor scene:

While the cone roof is the standout feature of this build, the entire scene is simply terrific! The harbor itself looks sturdy and lived in, with just the perfect amount of clutter and detail. I also love the dangling water plants.

If you want to incorporate new building techniques into your own builds or share some of your techniques with the LEGO community, I recommend checking out the LEGO Techniques Flickr Group for inspiration.