LEGO has unveiled their latest addition to the Architecture line, the instantly recognizable Sydney Opera House. Probably the most recognizable building south of the equator, and now something of a national icon for Australia, the opera house was designed in 1957 by then-unknown architect Jørn Utzon, who hails from Denmark, much like our favorite toy company.
The new set looks fantastic, capturing the aura of the structure, if not precisely the detailed curves of the shells. The set will have 270 pieces, and will be available March 1st for $39.99 or €39.99.
What an absolutely terrible set. How did this even get released?
Agreed, gambort…
“The new set looks fantastic, capturing the aura of the structure, if not precisely the detailed curves of the shells.”
???? are we looking @ the same set here, Chris? — or do you guys have to be “nice” to LEGO now. Call a spade a spade – this is a horrible set.My 3 year old builds better models than this. This “model” looks like what the Sarlacc pit in RoTJ should be in LEGO-form.
I’m not one for giving scathing remarks most of the time, but this post made me raise an eyebrow…
That set is really horrible… I’m so disappointed… I remember voting for this iconic building to be released as a set, but its just terrible.
Will, I can say whatever I want about sets. But I don’t think it’s all that bad. I admit that it doesn’t perfectly capture the curves of the actual structure, and I said as much in the post above. But terrible? Nah, I kinda like it. Maybe I have bad taste.
I think my confusion about your blog entry arose in how I read and understood “capturing the aura of the structure, if not precisely the detailed curves”… I thought you were trying to say it WAS precisely capturing the detailed curves in a flowery way. My bad. I misunderstood. We’re probably on the same page – although I’m a harsher critic ;)
The Brickvention mini model of 2008 is a better looking Sydney Opera House than this over priced joke.
Chris> Sorry for being so rude. I assumed you were quoting the press release. I would have been a lot more polite in my response if I’d realised it was your opinion.
EDIT: On the plus (I think) side it means you can write copy like a professional ;)
@ Gambort, Will: It’s all good. :)
Hey well in all honesty you all have to remember we are dealing with legos here and on and sma scale to say the least. I mean legos are pretty limited to what you can do with them and as the architecture of buildings becomes less and less to say basic or fairly simple in design using legos to recreate them will become increasingly more and more difficult. So I would say yes it doesnt truly resemble the opera house and I wod know cause I have actually been to Sydney and seen the building in person, inside and out I would still have to give you Chris two thumbs up for e en attempting to reactate sach an incredible and complex structure like the Sydney Opera House. ;)
^ Chris had nothing to do with building this. It’s a set.
And it can be built better at similar scale. If there wasn’t a very old example out there I wouldn’t be quite so harsh.
Well that is understandable my apologies. Then I say good job to the people at lego for it. I have seen the older set, but the more and more alike a replica model becomes of any structure it can make it more costly; sometimes far more than it needs to be. Yes the older one does look more like the structure, but I did some research on it and it use specially custom made pieces for the the roof. In m opinion it is better to make things look as close to the real hong as possible, bit also do it as cheek as possible. Idk…….. Those are just my thoughts.
However, I do agree that th set is already over priced. People will still buy it, but I’m not sure how many because people always want to get the most out of their money. I don’t think I will be worth it to some people.
Ugly.
While it is recognisably the Sydney Opera House, the SOH has *pointed* sails, these are *blunt*. This is to me the fundamental problem with this set; it’s as wrong, as would be, say, making a model of the Pentagon with six sides rather than five, because it was easier. There’s no way to get past that…
But still, there is no mistaking it for the SOH.