Brick-by-Brick

In the June issue of Met Home, I noticed a lot of rectangles.  Their Design 100 list included “gold.”  Illustrating their point was this image of the fretwork screen from Armani/Casa and the gold ingots from Conran touted as the chicest of doorstops.


Michael Berman’s collection for Kravet.


Toronto designer, Elaine Cecconi’s home.  This could be a “Highlights” magazine feature.  How many rectangles can you find?

So maybe someone at Met Home had a bit of an AHA! moment.  This month, their trend alert is bricks.

Blandings, naturally, are ahead of the trend.  The shameful secret of our Chicago trip, is that the very first place we went – after driving half the day and checking in – was the Lego store on Michigan Avenue.  It was a conundrum.  Listen to, “When are we going to the Lego store?  Are we going now?  After breakfast? After the Cubs game?” until we went or fulfill every wish, go first and lose all leverage for good behavior for the entire stay.  I’m old.  They won.

They each had pre-determined budget.  Reasonable, but healthy.  Research had been done.  It was a relatively painless and highly successful mission; everyone got what he wanted.  But, a few days later at Science and Industry, Mr. B and I spied the Hancock Building and the Sears Tower.  These had not been at the store.  I had to have them.  Me.  The boys never saw them and I bought them anyway because they were so…cool.

Even on Lego.com the Architecture Series says, “Coming Soon.”  I feel like we were in some kind of Lego time warp.  These Chicago landmarks were the first in the series but many, many more buildings are planned.  Architecture is a partnership with Adam Reed Tucker, an architecture artist and a Chicago native.  He has created intricate Lego sculptures of architectural masterpieces worldwide that you can see on brickstructures.com.  He has developed more manageable models for the 10 & up crowd.
Like me.  I’m 10 & up.  Way up, but still.
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10 thoughts on “Brick-by-Brick

  1. Hip to be square and that’s fine by me, I do like my 3 square’s a day!
    What a great lego series.

  2. Where are you going to place the landmarks in your home? They are so perfect for the Blandings.

  3. Courtney – the big boys nabbed them, of course. One each on their bedside tables, leaving the youngest saying things like, “I want the Space Needle, no the Arch.” I hope they hurry up and come out with the next one!

  4. Good grief, have you already put them together? My son’s Lego sets were so complicated and even with my help it took a while to complete even the more simple structures. Impressive. . . I’ll have to tell him about the architectural series. . . at 28, he still builds model cars and airplanes.

  5. I think the little Blandings should have both the space needle and the arch because he waited, not to mention he is so very cute.
    Great find!!!

  6. My Legos were played with well into high school! Playschool also made building sets that had a variety of paneled doors and mullioned windows. The bricks were thin top to bottom though, making it difficult to build anything sizeable with only a few cans of blocks.

    That Walker Zanger tile…I could put that to work for me now.

  7. These are fantastic! I had no idea that Lego was coming out with these.

    There are plenty of adults who still make things with Lego (including a fair number of people working in architecture). I’m sure this will be a big hit with them.

  8. What a great idea by those Lego people. Think of all the grown-up Legoists who will start playing with their Legos again. And you are such a nice mom to let them buy their Legos up front. My question to you: did you construct those buildings all by yourself?

  9. Mrs. Blandings, we must have crossed paths somewhere in Iowa! I went from Chicago to Kansas City last week, had a wonderful time, I always love being in KC. So glad you enjoyed Chicago, it’s a wonderful place to be!

  10. I love those lego buildings. I will be keeping my eye out for them for my son. They would be much more fun for me to help out with than the gd Star Wars ones.

    PS, I am a fellow Kansas girl too. Planning on getting together with Jessie of The Lucky Stone some day. We’d love to meet oyu too!

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