LEGOs are one of those toys that people of all genders and ages are sure to enjoy. After all, they come in amazingly detailed sets that are perfect for designing a variety of things, from houses to animals, random knick-knacks, and so on.
There are even a lot of LEGO sets that you can build and proudly display on your office desk, especially those from the LEGO Architecture series. These sets are simple, yet innovative, and most definitely fun!
Check out this ultimate guide to the best LEGO architecture sets of 2021, as well as some valuable insight on the history and development of LEGO, plus a list of all the reasons why you should indulge your inner child and buy a LEGO set for yourself.
15 Best LEGO Architecture Sets
We’ve ranked all the best LEGO architecture kits for you to choose from, including lots of LEGO landmark sets, LEGO skyline sets, LEGO city building sets, and LEGO Expert sets. Take a look at each one so you can find some cool LEGO builds for you and your friends!
London Skyline Collection
Our top pick is the LEGO London Skyline, which opens you up to one of the world’s most incredible cityscape. You’ll have fun creating various historical landmarks and architectural wonders of London, as well as learn about the city’s rich history from the included booklet.
With LEGO London, you can build a detailed rendering of London’s skyline, complete with all five iconic London landmarks, such as the Tower Bridge, London Eye, National Gallery, Nelson’s Column, and Big Ben LEGO set, all in cool LEGO model buildings.
If you love London’s culture and architecture, or if you have an interest in travel and design, this London LEGO set might just be the perfect decor in your home or office space. Trust us, both you and your family will have so much fun with this one.
- 5 building models of iconic landmarks in London
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 11 x 5 x 3 inches
- Total of 468 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
Paris Skyline Building Kit
We also fell in love with the Paris Skyline building kit, which screams beauty, elegance, history, and passion. The LEGO Architecture Paris perfectly captures the city skyline and incorporates various iconic monuments and remarkable French architecture.
These include the Louvre, Champs-Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Grand Palais, and of course, a complete Eiffel Tower LEGO set. All that and more to complete the historic Paris skyline and recreate a city that’s filled with creativity and detail, and is perfect for a showroom centerpiece.
Across this entire LEGO, architecture sets list, this one’s by far the most picturesque, as it perfectly captures France’s bustling history, culture, and architecture. It’s an immersive city model that makes for a wonderful collectible toy or a thoughtful gift for kids and adults alike.
- 5+ historic monuments including LEGO Eiffel Tower
- Measures 11 x 8 x 4 inches
- Total of 649 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
Chicago Skyline Building Blocks Set
Not all US cities and states have LEGO building sets dedicated to them, but Chicago must have something really special since the LEGO Chicago skyline kit is one of the most popular ones out there. We suppose it has something to do with its being a mercurial metropolis of sorts.
With a striking replica of various notable architectures such as the John Hancock Center, DuSable Bridge, Willis Tower, Cloud Gate, Big Red, and Wrigley Building, this is one amazing contemporary addition to your LEGO collection. It even comes with a Chicago nameplate.
All the building blocks have true to life color and accurately depict the structures’ sizes, not to mention show incredible detail. What you get is a reinvented blend of modernism and history in a LEGO Chicago brick model that shows Chicago’s rich history, culture, and design.
- 6 stately city architectures of Chicago
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 8 x 7 x 1 inches
- Total of 444 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
United States Capitol Building Kit
One of LEGO’s most impressive building kits to date, the LEGO Capitol Building is made with more than a thousand carefully selected bricks to pay homage to an equally impressive public office, and a true presidential centerpiece.
The Capitol Building is not only architecturally impressive, it’s symbolically important, too. In fact, it’s a magnificent embodiment of a neoclassical architecture that is the product of several major reconstructions over the decades since 1973 during the term of George Washington.
It’s meticulously detailed and perfectly interprets the building’s focus on striking whites, lavish steps and lawns, and columned facades. It even showcases an impressive dome that can be removed to show the complex interiors complete with halls, columns, tiled floors, and statues. Plus, it matches the Lincoln Memorial Model Kit in scale.
- Accurate replica of the 1.5M sq.ft. building
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 12 x 6 x 6 inches
- Total of 1032 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
LEGO Big Ben
If what you love the most in London architecture is the instantly recognizable and highly remarkable Big Ben clock tower, you might want to consider getting the Big Ben LEGO set instead of the complete LEGO London skyline.
It’s a near accurate representation of this world landmark, with all its classical designs and distinct gothic influences. It’s designed by architect Roc Kobe and showcases the impressive clockwork by the original designer Edward John Dent in the mid-1800’s.
The Big Ben LEGO building kit is sure to inspire the future engineer, architect, and designer in you. Right now, you may be building amazing creations with LEGO bricks, but soon enough, you’ll be recreating esteemed structures with actual brick and mortar.
- Detailed Big Ben clock tower in brick model
- Part of a LEGO landmarks series
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 7.7 x 3.8 x 3.1 inches
Tokyo Building Kit
Moving on to Asia, one of the most remarkable LEGO architecture sets you’ll find is the LEGO Architecture Tokyo, which highlights the city’s distinctive and striking skyline features with an assortment of authentically detailed replicas of Tokyo’s iconic landmarks and buildings.
Among the architecture, models are the Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Big SIght, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, Tokyo Skytree, Shibuya Crossing, and Chidorigafuchi Park. This stunning display model also comes with a Tokyo nameplate for a perfect home or office display.
It’s actually fairly easy to build even for beginner LEGO architects and is sure to be a great gift for LEGO Japan lovers and enthusiasts. Plus, aside from the authentic details, the vibrant colors and eye-catching visuals are sure to impress.
- 6 buildable models of Tokyo buildings
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 11 x 10 x 3 inches
- For ages 16+
Great Wall of China Building Kit
When we think of Asia and its best tourist attractions, one of the first things that come to mind is none other than the Great Wall of China, a world heritage site that is filled with countless architectural secrets intertwined with a long and complicated history.
Thanks to the LEGO Great Wall of China, you can now enjoy exploring this unique structure with all its ingenious building techniques. You’ll be able to replicate the draping architecture that stretches and curves along seemingly endless terrain with lots of mountains and valleys.
To complete your relaxing and rewarding LEGO building experience, it comes with wall towers, turrets, the winding Great Wall, and a mountainous landscape filled with lakes and trees. It even comes with decorative Chinese and English nameplates for a truly dynastic centerpiece.
- Accurately detailed collectible model of the Great Wall
- Can be connected with multiple Great Wall models
- Measures 10 x 4 x 3 inches
- Total of 551 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
Dubai Building Kit
All the way to the other side of Asia, in the rich Middle East, we are also blessed with this spectacular LEGO Dubai architecture building kit that brings together intricate brick models of iconic Dubai buildings to pay tribute to the exciting modern city.
It’s a compact skyline model that comes with various world-renowned architectural wonders, including the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah Hotel, The Dubai Fountain, Dubai Frame, and Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, not to mention a LEGO Burj Khalifa, and a Dubai nameplate.
Simply put, if you have a love affair with this wonderful city, and you’d like a charming souvenir or a lovely display of its skyline, you’ll be impressed with all the authentic details that this building kit comes with.
- 5 Dubai architectural models
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 12 x 10 x 2 inches
- For ages 16+
LEGO Seattle Space Needle
Going back to the US, we’ve got this architectural marvel in the form of the LEGO Space Needle, the perfect embellishment to your LEGO Seattle display. Of course, this architectural building set is complete with everything that the real-life structure boasts of.
This includes the infamous strong support design of the tripod base and the unique and iconic flying saucer top. This way, you can really recreate the marvelous futuristic tower that has been proudly on display in Seattle, Washington, since 1962.
It’s actually one of the very first real-world architectural wonders in the LEGO Architecture Landmark series. It’s pretty easy to build, and can conveniently be combined with lots of other sets so you can design your very own LEGO city skyline.
- Gray brick Space Needle assembly with printed name label
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 8.7 x 3.1 inches
- Total of 57 individual pieces
Sydney Skyline Building Blocks Set
From down under, there’s the glamorous and flamboyant Sydney skyline with all its glitz and panache, and it’s perfectly captured by the LEGO Architecture Sydney building blocks set, which gives you a truly creative experience in recreating magnificent architectures from the other side of the world.
This realistic brick model wonderfully showcases every nuance and curve of the Australian capital and combines them into one sensational masterpiece that is worthy of a central display in your home or office space.
It comes with accurate scaled representations of Australia’s most popular structures in true to life colors, including the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Deutsche Bank Place, and of course, a decorative nameplate.
- 4+ scaled brick models of Australian architecture
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 9 x 8 x 2 inches
- Total of 361 individual pieces
- For ages 12+
LEGO Architecture Fallingwater
One of the most famous Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO sets, and also likely the most well known residential homes in the entire world, is Fallingwater, a masterpiece in the organic architectural style that seamlessly blends into its surrounding landscape by intimately merging man and nature.
It’s a highly detailed LEGO brick model co-developed and designed by Adam Reed Tucker that amazingly captures all the details and distinctive features of Fallingwater and all the things that make it an architectural landmark.
The building kit comes with a wide gray base, a printed name label, and a collectible booklet that talks all about the building’s construction and history ever since it opened to the public back in 1963. All in all, it’s an imaginative and striking display for your home or office.
- Detailed brick replica of the Fallingwater residence
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 10 inches wide
- Total of 811 individual pieces
LEGO Architecture Villa Savoye
Another highly popular residential home, this time on the outskirts of Paris, France, the 1920s Villa Savoye is a modernist style country house that showcases designer Le Corbusier’s five-point construction principle.
It’s the perfect embodiment of how modern architecture and mother nature can be fused together into a harmonious masterpiece, and you can really see that in the Villa’s masterful architecture and its woodland surroundings.
In fact, this LEGO architecture series is complete with all the features of the real thing, such as the open floor planning, the majestic columns and pillars, the long horizontal windows, the functional roof space, and the free facade, all designed by architect Michael Hepp and the LEGO design team.
- Brick recreation of a French modernist marvel
- Part of the LEGO Landmark and Architecture series
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 7.5 x 6.9 x 3.6 inches
Louvre Building Set
Much like the Big Ben, you can also choose to focus on a single masterpiece of Parisian architecture with the LEGO Louvre building set, which is coincidentally one of the more advanced LEGO sets in the entire collection.
And, who doesn’t love the Louvre? It’s only the world’s largest art museum and a truly magnificent structure on the banks of the Seine river. It’s a majestic display of Renaissance and Modernist eras of architecture. And, it houses the Mona Lisa.
Moreover, aside from recreating this heritage in amazing detail, you also get to learn about its rich and long winding history, including how it began as a fortress against foreign invasion during King Philip Augustus’ reign in 1190.
- Brick model of the Pyramide du Louvre and the Pavillon de l’Horloge
- Collectible booklet included
- Measures 7 x 6 x 5 inches
- Total of 695 individual pieces
LEGO Architecture New York City
What’s the best and liveliest city in the world? Many of us would probably say, New York. after all, it’s the city that never sleeps. It’s also very culturally diverse, which shows a long history and its interesting architecture.
If you love New York, you’ll be happy to know that the New York LEGO set is a detailed building kit that accurately depicts the New York skyline complete with its famous buildings in accurate scale, representation, and real-life color.
It’s filled with imposing towers and impressive skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, Chrysler Building, and Flatiron Building. It also comes with a New York nameplate and a collectible booklet.
- 5+ NYC skyscrapers and landmarks
- Collectible booklet included
- Can be combined with other city building sets
The White House Model Building Kit
Last but not the least, check out this impressive LEGO architectural display model, the LEGO Architecture White House, which perfectly encapsulates the world-famous building’s neoclassical design in all its splendor.
It’s a great way to glimpse the lives of all the presidents of the United States since the early 1800s inside their state-mandated residence. It may just be a LEGO brick model, but its interiors are intricately detailed with the main features of the White House.
Yup! All three sections, including a close inspection of the Executive Residence, all the architectural details of the East and West Wings, the house’s connecting colonnades, and even the Jacqueline Kennedy and Rose gardens. All that and a nice White House nameplate makes for a perfect conversation starter.
- 3-sectional view of the White House interiors and exteriors
- Measures 18 x 7 x 4 inches
What is LEGO?
Frankly, we all know what LEGOs are. After all, they’re only one of the most popular toys in the world. But, to give you more of an idea, LEGO is actually the name of the company that makes and sells these interlocking plastic brick toys.
Perhaps what makes them so great is that they are intrinsically simple, and yet show so much potential in that these blocks can easily be assembled into just about anything. Whether you want to build a car, house, or action figure, you’re really only limited by your own imagination. This is why LEGO toys have been passed down across generations and continue to be popular.
Interestingly enough, LEGOs were originally made so kids can learn while playing, but this very concept is ultimately what made them popular and successful.
Company history
The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, who was initially a wooden toymaker. The term LEGO itself arises from a Danish phrase that roughly translates to “play well”. From wooden toys, the LEGO company slowly transitioned to plastic toys, before eventually making the first version of the now internationally in-demand interlocking blocks.
The first-ever LEGO product range was named “Town Plan No.1” since it lets you build simple structures such as houses, hotels, and gas stations. This has since evolved into many different things, such as the LEGO architecture, which started back in the early ’60s when scale models were introduced.
Development
From this first model, the company saw the growing interest and profitability with architectural sets, but their first attempts largely failed, so they kept their focus on kids’ toys such as cars, spaceships, the blockbuster Star Wars franchise, seasonal Christmas LEGOs, and even LEGO storage kits towards the later years.
However, it took a long time, thirty years, to be exact, before this architectural focus really took off. This was when Kansas State artist Adam Reed Tucker conceptualized miniatures of popular structures from all around the world, starting with the LEGO Architecture Chicago complete with its skyscrapers. These sets were packaged with easy to follow instructions for kids and adults.
The LEGO architecture series
From Tucker’s first LEGO architecture set in 2008, the sub-brand of LEGO architecture was born. The following year, six initial sets were released, which were divided into the Architecture Series with Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces, and the Landmark Series with four renowned US skyscrapers. Two years later, the sub-brand went global, and so did their designs.
Through the following years, there has been an increase in architectural displays from other countries and continents. There was even the release of the Skyline Series, which focused on depicting the skylines of popular cities around the world, such as Berlin and Venice.
Now, you’ll see 32 different models, including the Rockefeller Center, Marina Bay Sands, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and some works from world-famous architects. Some of these are part of the Biggest LEGO sets ever made.
The LEGO Architecture Studio
Aside from the LEGO Architecture series, the brand also released an independent product called the LEGO Architecture Studio, which was launched in 2013 and comprises 1,210 white and transparent LEGO bricks that you can assemble into pretty much whatever kind of architectural wonder you like.
It comes with a hefty guidebook made by professional architects from world-renowned firms and contains lots of instructions, design tips and techniques, and building exercises. The bricks come in various forms and sizes, and without the famous LEGO color palette, so adults, who are this product’s target market, can focus on innovation and creativity without restrictions.
Why You Should Play With LEGOs
There’s a reason why LEGOs have remained in demand over the years. Plenty of them, actually. LEGOs are more than mindless entertainments. They’ve become somewhat like a childhood milestone, especially since they teach children several important lessons and skills.
LEGOs Unleash Your Creativity
These building blocks let kids and adults alike think outside the box and become creative. It nurtures creativity in a unique way. It fosters a culture of innovation and instills a divergent thinking mindset as you continuously design, prototype, seek solutions, connect spaces, and just simply build, design, wreck, and redo through play.
When you build LEGO structures by following directions for specific LEGO sets, you learn problem-solving skills. When you build from scratch and let your imagination go wild, it’s always a fun discovery process as there are endless possible outcomes.
LEGOs Teach You About Design
The beauty of LEGOs is their very nature of assembly and disassembly with simple parts that seamlessly come together into whatever you want, whether it’s a real-life replica or a scaled model of a famous architectural landmark, or an amalgamation of random parts into your very own concept, with all your own tweaks and transformations.
Plus, for kids, building with LEGOs gives the kids a solid foundation in architecture, engineering, and design. Recreating famous landmarks teaches the building concepts behind these structures, and building towers from scratch develop spatial skills.
LEGOs Are a Great Investment
The thing is, LEGOs are more than just toys. They are also a valuable investment. First, these blocks are almost indestructible. Hobbyists also collect special LEGO sets, as the collecting process is fun and thrilling, not to mention the collections appreciate in value over the years.
LEGOs are also timeless. The ones you can buy today are essentially the same ones being sold from before you were born. You also play with them the same way, and the best part is that they are still fun and interesting to tinker with.
Final Thoughts
LEGOs are loved by children and adults alike. They are fun to play with, building LEGOs is a complex, thrilling, and fun process, finished pieces serve as great displays in the home or office space, and LEGOs even give you a great foundation for understanding STEM fields.
Which one on this list is the best LEGO architecture set for you? Let us know in the comments!
