Lego Modular Buildings is a series of Lego building toy sets introduced in 2007, with new sets usually being released annually. Created in response to feedback and suggestions from the Adult Fans of Lego bricks (AFOL) and Teen Fans of Lego (TFOL) communities, the sets in this series are generally intended for more advanced builders.
Although the sets are still scaled around the minifigure and depict town and city life, they are much more complex than traditional Legoland Town/City sets; they contain more than 2,000 total pieces and make use of unorthodox building techniques not usually used in previous official Lego sets. In contrast to most Lego sets aimed at children and adolescents, the suggested age of most sets in the Lego Modular Buildings series is 16 years or older. The Lego Modular Buildings sets have been received with positive reviews and are considered by Lego designers and fans as an "adult collection".
History In 2006, a poll was taken, aimed at the community. Adults were asked to share an opinion about what concept they would like to see for a future model from the Lego Group. Some of the common ideas submitted were more town and everyday buildings, structures with more architectural detail, realistic buildings, minifigure scale buildings, and solid and enclosed buildings. These ideas were taken into consideration, and a year later, the first set in the Modular Buildings series, Café Corner, was released. Some LEGO fans were invited to provide feedback and suggestions during the design of the set.
All sets in the series can also be joined to form a larger neighborhood layout of several buildings standing adjacent to each other. Connectors at the base of the models are aligned for easy connection with other models in the series.
Construction sets
Café Corner (2007) Café Corner (set number: 10182) was the first of the Modular Buildings series sold exclusively through LEGO stores. It was originally released in April 2007 and was loosely based on a corner building in Denmark, as well as other countries around the world. The set contains 2056 pieces and is recommended for builders 16 years of age or older. Some of the set features include a three floor building set on a street corner, a vertical 'Hotel' sign, opening doors and windows, café tables and umbrellas, a striped awning and three minifigures. Many unusual building techniques were incorporated, such as annexes, fanned minifigure-sized skis as decoration, angled corner, and a 3D façade.
During the development of this first set in the series, the designer team, led by Jamie Berard, considered the cost of several options. One more expensive version had additional café features, dark green interior walls, a bike, and an additional minifigure. In contrast, a lower-cost version of the set was considered, which lacked rear exterior walls, interior stairs, and extra interior walls on the second floor, and had only two minifigures but no bike.
Market Street Market Street (set number: 10190) was the second of the Modular Buildings series and designed by Dutch Lego fan Eric Brok under the Lego Factory theme, a theme composed of sets primarily designed by fans of Lego and not by the Lego design team. It was originally released as a follow-up to Café Corner in late 2007. The set contains 1236 pieces and is recommended for builders 10 years of age or older. It was one of the first leading buildings. The set features include opening doors and windows, a gate, a striped awning, and three minifigures. Advanced construction techniques used in Market Street include: curved staircases, "stripped paint" sections on the walls, interchangeable floors, Dutch/Belgian stepped roof, a basement, offset windows, and wrought iron-look decoration and gate.
Market Street is a unique set in the Modular Buildings series in that it has fewer than 2000 pieces and is recommended for builders 10 years and up, rather than the usual 16 or 18. One of the reasons this set was smaller than the others was to provide a lower-cost entry point into the Modular Buildings series. Prior to 2018, this was the only Modular Building set to have minifigures that did not all have the LEGO Classic smile face.
Market Street is the only set in the series to be released with Lego Factory branding on the box – and as such is sometimes questioned how official it was intended to be as a modular building entry as it was designed by a fan rather than a Lego designer. Eric Brok, a fan from the Netherlands, designed the set working closely with LEGO designers.
Green Grocer (2008) Green Grocer (set number: 10185) was the third of the Modular Buildings series. It was originally released in March 2008. The set contains 2352 pieces and is recommended for builders 16 years of age or older. Some of the set features include a blue and white awning, opening doors and windows, detailed interiors to each room, a roof terrace, a fire escape, access to a courtyard behind the building, and four minifigures. Advanced building techniques used in Green Grocer include using black skeleton legs and hammers to make railings, black spear guns as railings for the fire escape, a paddle for a pendulum in a grandfather clock, and hinges to make a bay window.
Green Grocer differs from the previous two sets in the series because it has a greater level of detail inside. Whereas Café Corner and Market Street had bare interiors, each floor in Green Grocer contains a prop such as a radiator or some furniture. The first floor is fully furnished as a grocery store with refrigerated shelves with opening doors, and cartons of food. The assortment of Lego food pieces in the grocery includes carrots, apples, and bananas. There is also a stairway to the apartment above and a mailbox set with letters.
Fire Brigade (2009) Fire Brigade (set number: 10197) was the fourth set in the Modular Buildings series, released in September 2009. The set contains 2231 pieces and is recommended for builders 16 years of age or older. Modelled to look like a realistic 1930s fire station, the set includes a bell tower, an opening garage door, a 1930s-style fire truck, and four minifigures with a fire-dog. Unlike the previous modulars, all floors in the Fire Brigade set are fully furnished. The Fire Brigade is the first Modular to come with a vehicle, the 1930s-style fire truck. The set also includes some new, unique pieces, such as gold fire helmets and a red sliding garage door.
New building techniques introduced with this set include a method of creating numbers built into the structure using standard Lego bricks. On the front of the building, the year 1932 appears, which is a reference to when Lego was founded. The number 3 also appears on the pavement of the set, representing that this is the third set in the series from Lego set designer Jamie Berard, who had previously designed Café Corner and Green Grocer.
Grand Emporium (2010) Grand Emporium (set number: 10211) is the fifth set in the Modular Buildings series and the second corner building released in March 2010. The set contains 2182 pieces and is recommended for builders 16 years of age or older. Modeled to look like a realistic early 20th-century department store, the set includes an exterior with an ice cream stand, store window displays, a window washer platform, and a rooftop billboard. Interior details for the three-floor building include an escalator, a dressing room, and a wide assortment of merchandise. It is built as a block corner building, similarly to Café Corner, Palace Cinema, Brick Bank, Corner Garage, and Boutique Hotel. There are seven minifigures, including two that are decorated with blank faces to look like mannequins.
Pet Shop (2011)
Pet Shop (set number: 10218) is the sixth set in the Modular Buildings series, released in May 2011. The set contains 2032 pieces and is recommended for builders 16 years of age or older. It is the first set in the series that is actually two buildings that are separated using the same Technic pins that link the rest of the modular buildings together. They can be reversed or separated and wrapped around another building. The brown building is a brownstone-style townhouse with elevated ground floor atop a crawl space, and the sand blue building is the Pet Shop. The brown building was the second building after Market Street that had a basement. There is a feature on the Pet Shop on the ground floor where the staircase can be folded away for more access room for playing, as this was an issue with Market Street. There are four minifigures, two parrots, one dog, one cat, and a fish tank with goldfish. The set also includes three dog bones, a ball, a frog toy, a birdhouse, a bucket, and a brush. Until the Brick Bank, this was also the shortest set by height and stands at just over 25 cm. The next tallest modular is Market Street at 33 cm. The set includes a full interior, including a toilet, bed, kitchen, and fireplace.
Town Hall (2012) Town Hall (set number: 10224) was released in March 2012 and is the seventh set in the Modular Building line. The set contains 2766 pieces and is recommended for builders 14 and over. It is the tallest Modular set, taking the title from the Green Grocer, having three floors with generally higher ceilings than the norm, plus a clock and bell tower on the roof. It contains many interior details, such as a working elevator, along with board tables and balconies to look out to the floor below. Along with the many interior decor details, the building features the pilastered portico and brick façade treatments of United States Colonial Revival architecture. The 1891 date on the building represents the birth year of the founder of Lego, and when reversed, it is the birth year of the designer, Astrid Graabæk (1981). The set was released by LEGO on 16 February 2012. There are eight minifigures in the set, including a wedding couple. The set had a global discontinuation date of 31 December 2014 and had a much shorter lifespan than its predecessors.
Palace Cinema (2013)
Palace Cinema (set number: 10232) was released in March 2013. It is the eighth set in the Modular Building line and the third corner building. The set contains 2194 pieces and features architectural homage to the Egyptian Revival architecture of the early 20th century, albeit with Chinese-like cultural appropriations similar to Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre. As such, it also features Hollywood Walk of Fame type printed star tiles for the outer sidewalk, LEGO elements that returned to decorate the walls in 2018's Downtown Diner. Palace Cinema is the first Modular Building set to be released with the Lego Creator Expert branding on its box and was the first to include stickers. Some of these are movie posters containing Lego in-jokes such as the ubiquitous brick separator tool used to disassemble (Godzilla-like "The Brick Separator"), the time-consuming sorting of Lego elements ("Forever Sorting"), and Lego's iconic 1990 red Airport Shuttle 6399 set ("Mystery On The Monorail"). Also, Palace Cinema was the second of the Modular Building sets to have only two floors (albeit with higher ceilings than the norm) instead of the usual three, and the second to include a vehicle: a black car styled loosely on a convertible Buick.
The ground floor is the ticket and concessions area, leading up to the theater floor housing a reel-to-reel projector showing a black and white motion picture to a maximum seating of six. This floor also has stairs accessing the roof, atop which the two brick-built promotional searchlights can be placed. The set includes six minifigures.
Parisian Restaurant (2014)