21066 New York City – The Big Apple packs in all of the iconography of the US city into a single LEGO Architecture display set.
LEGO Architecture continues to focus on abstracted depictions of beloved cities, with 21066 New York City – The Big Apple following up 21064 Paris – City of Love, which debuted the new style of cityscape sets earlier this year.
21066 uses 1,465 pieces, retails for £129.99 / $139.99 / €139.99 and will launch on June 1, alongside the new Icons set 11380 Road Bike.
The set builds a huge apple shaped backdrop, paying homage to New York’s nickname ‘the Big Apple’. There are then various skyscrapers to construct in different hues, plus icons such as the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan museum. Smaller details to put together include Central Park and yellow taxi cabs.
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“This model is a fresh expression, and we really embraced the well-known nickname by creating this abstracted composition placed against a big apple containing the night sky.” says Senior Model Designer Mary Wilson.
“With this model, we decided to keep it as a very new colour palette for LEGO Architecture, so we stuck with this sort of bluish grey scale, though I’m sure you can see that there are small pops of yellow, we actually were able to recolour the LEGO minifigure roller skate to be the small taxis that fill the entire city.”
Mary explored different options before arriving at the nighttime skyline framed by the apple. “We knew that apple was going to be a part of it, but the way that the city would be attached to it, we explored so many different ideas, from being like an arch of the city and abstracting it more, to being like a full like half circle.
“We have so much time and development that we can really nail down the form and composition – we explored a lot.”
The new set and style intends to appeal to a broader audience than previous Architecture sets. The theme originally launched as part of the LEGO Group’s New Business unit, a small startup approach to new ranges, and went on to achieve great success. Mary’s comments suggest though that the company believes that Architecture sales could be stronger.
“I very much saw this as almost an art piece, almost like the apple is the canvas. The composition was so important for this, so I really appreciated that this had a new angle. Though I will say, it is very true to the Architecture line still, and the detail in each one of the landmarks that we’ve chosen.”
Printed star elements come in the set and the ice cream scoop element has been recoloured in green so that it can represent foliage.
Ultimately though, the pops of green and yellow are in service to the artistic depiction of New York that Mary wanted to achieve. “The colour exploration was huge, but we really wanted to almost have like a sophisticated feel, then merge that with the playful LEGO style that we can do,” she says.
“With that, we wanted to be a very limited colour palette. We initially were trying it just with white, black and grey colours, we tried a sort of silver as well, but it didn’t give a lot of option for depth. That’s why we introduced the dark blue and the sand blue, that was kind of an in-between tone, instead of very stark differences. We played with the buildings being a more realistic colour, but again, it just stands out so much more, what we want to pop pops, so this is where it ends up.”
21066 New York City – The Big Apple is available to preorder now.
Beyond the new Architecture set, a slew of new sets have been announced for City, Bluey, Minecraft, Disney, Friends, Fortnite, Harry Potter, NINJAGO and Chinese Festivals.
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