2026 marks the 25th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring — learn how LEGO Model Designer François Zapf ensured 11377 The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith has all the right details to make it worthy of the classic trilogy’s milestone year.
Minas Tirith only appears briefly in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, serving as a stop on Gandalf’s journey to learn about the One Ring. It doesn’t truly shine until The Return of the King, where it serves as the central location for the story and hosts one of the trilogy’s most epic battles. Still, despite it being more associated with the final film than the first, there was no better location to choose for the set that would become the largest LEGO The Lord of the Rings model ever – 11377 Minas Tirith, recently released with a special bonus freebie set.
LEGO Model Designer François Zapf was appointed the task of bringing the White City to the brick, doing so with a special mix of micro and minifigure scales. There’s intricate detail all over the model at both scales, but when it came to designing the minifigure scale sections, François knew he would have to make it extra special to be a proper kick off to the trilogy’s 25th anniversary.
When deciding what details should make it into the model, he was lucky to have ample source material to study.
“For the movie, a giant ‘bigature’ was built for filming,” François explains. “We looked extensively at photos of the details of that model to create this LEGO brick version. In the movie, the model was used for wide and establishing shots of the city, but also for close-up views during the battle. So we were able to zoom way in on intricate architectural details and recreate them in the set.”
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In typical LEGO set fashion, the exterior details cover three sides of the model — the back is left open to reveal the grand interior, which centres on the throne room but also includes other spaces that reference Gandalf’s study and the intimate moment he and Pippin share as the pieces on the board begin to move into place.
“We mapped out every significant interior location from the films and then had to make some hard choices based on what was physically achievable and what would be most meaningful to fans,” says François. “The throne room and citadel were non-negotiable. The Houses of Healing are also beautiful spaces and was one of several locations we discussed during development, but we ultimately prioritised locations tied to the film’s most iconic and dramatic moments. There’s always tension between what a fan wants to see and what a builder wants to experience constructing, and that balance shapes every decision.”
The space that features the most dramatic tension — with the arguable alternative of the attempted funeral pyre — is the throne room. It’s the space where Denethor learns of Boromir’s death, where Pippin swears his service to Gondor and sings his quietly powerful song and where Aragorn wields the Palantir.
All this made it an easy decision to fill the bulk of the interior space with a grand recreation of the throne room, stretching nearly the entire height of the model.
“The throne room is my favourite scene in the model,” François smiles. “It’s the heart of the citadel. Getting the proportions right was so important to the final design. It’s also the kind of interior that rewards you for building it. You discover the details as you build, which is always a focus for us.”
The set’s minifigures fill out the throne room scene nicely, but there’s an extra bit of detail stashed in another part of the model waiting for when Aragorn reclaims the throne from Denethor — some logs and a torch.
“Denethor’s story is one of the most memorable parts of The Return of the King,” says François. “We wanted to include a subtle reference for fans to discover during the build. If you’re putting Denethor in a set that includes the citadel, you have to acknowledge that the end of his arc is one of the most memorable sequences in the whole trilogy. We wanted to include a reference that fans would recognise immediately but handle it with enough subtlety that it works as a detail.”
That level of care for the source material and the build experience is exemplified throughout the set — to find out how François balanced micro and minifigure scale details to create the ultimate Minas Tirith model, head here.
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