hey everyone this is the Lego
architecture Trafalgar Square set and
I'm going to show it to you and talk
about it a little bit but first I want
to set some expectations because I do
not know much at all about the real-life
Trafalgar Square and I'm not a member of
the Trafalgar Square Historical Society
or anything like that I'm just somebody
who's a big fan of Lego knows a fair bit
about Lego and is going to talk to you
about this as a Lego set first and
foremost first up let's look at the
building in the back it's the National
Gallery and it looks fantastic in this
very very small Lego scale you've got
the nice columns there suggestions of
small stairways on the sides we'll get
to the main stairway and the front in a
minute which is a pretty special
technique but there are a lot of really
nice building techniques used throughout
this entire model you've got the
relatively basic builds for the
skylights up on top but I'm going to do
something that I don't do too frequently
here I want to take off just a couple of
these tiles on the side to let you see
just a little bit more for folks who
actually build Lego to understand what
you're looking at here you've got these
small ledges that are one half of a
plate in height right here that stick
out and go all the way across and those
are formed with a row well actually rows
of bracket pieces and they have the stud
facing down right here and then you just
have 1 by 1 plates inside of there that
just gives you that little bit of
extension there you don't have to check
out the building instructions at the
very least download them online from
Lego zone website or elsewhere just by
searching it up to see the full
technique used there but it's pretty
nice and these little bits are just
clipped pieces which you only see from
the front which gives an interesting
little bit of of texture that appears
there as that goes all the way across so
this is all just really nicely done
they're red items represent banners that
are hanging on the sides of the entrance
in there looks like one of them is not
quite
as vertical as it ought to be but this
is really good stuff and it possibly
even gets a little bit better well at
least a little bit more surprising in a
good way around the back because this is
all just flat and plain right it's it's
all just white it almost kind of washes
away on screen but these are little
pullout panels let you see just a little
bit of interior detail and they have
printed tiles used on the inside to
represent some works of art inside of
the gallery itself so here's another one
here this one actually has a statue
right there and what I believe is a
rather inappropriate painting over on on
the side I think there's a little bit of
humor implied right there that one looks
a little bit more serious for a proper
gallery here's another one over here as
you can pull out and that's just another
you know just a suggestion of some
artwork there that's a new tile for a
20-19 but you know I think it's it's
novel in a good way it's nice to be able
to see some level of interior detail on
any of these sets that generally tend to
just depict the most superficial and the
most obvious and and large features of
the buildings or the locations that
they're trying to show in this case at
least this also provides a little bit of
visual interest around the back if you
just leave these panels off rather than
having it be all plain back there rather
than rather than all of this being a
boring side to look at if you're not
going to place this with the back up
against a wall if you can have it on a
table or something where people can walk
around this gives them something else to
look at so it you know breaks up the
monotony of it next I've got to talk
about these stairs I found that to be
fascinating from the first time that I
saw the initial release pictures of this
thing and the way they are put together
is like this using these panel pieces
these here are the one by fours and
just stacked on top of each other like
so in this case the top one is attached
with studs on the side construction the
others are not attached they're just
kind of sitting in place but they are
positively located they are ultimately
all clamped in place so they don't move
around you can see it's sliding just
ever so slightly but you know it's just
a stack of them that are well fit into
place and it just makes for a wonderful
little micro scale staircase and they
used a similar technique around the side
over here coming down from this plateau
mezzanine area up here and just comes
down and has a little bit of a turn not
absolutely perfect
spacing right there you see one of them
appears to be a little bit longer I
don't think I did anything wrong there
the one on the other side is exactly the
same in that way but it's nice to have
that little bit of suggestion of
movement I also like how the corner is
curved in there and then as we get down
to the main ground level there are a
couple of fountains and those have a
fair number of pieces in them even
though they are fairly small and they're
pretty nicely done
you know there's not a lot of detail
there but I like water features myself
just generally speaking there are four
so called prints now that hold
statues up one here one there one there
you can look up what they what they have
on them but this one over here is
actually a rotating space where they
switch in different different types of
exhibits at different times different
pieces of artwork and sometimes they're
like living art you know you can they
can be different things this looks
similar to one that has been used at
least at this scale the one that has
been used in past similar to one that's
going to be used starting in 2020 it's
going to be placed there but I think
it's intended to be just a generic kind
of placeholder to show that things go
here and who knows in the future there
may be a full-on egg-shaped
school
sure that will be placed there that
would be pretty fun to see around the
base of this Center kind of centerpiece
statue would be ridiculously tall
columnar plinth these are representing
statues of or sculptures of lions and I
don't think you can do too much better
than that at this tiny tiny tiny tiny
scale there may be some options that
were worth trying but I'm sure the Lego
designer tried many many things and I
think that for the scale that works out
pretty well and this is Nelson's column
and evidently he's an admiral who
prevented the entirety of at the time
the Kingdom of Britain from or I guess
Great Britain from being taken over by
Napoleon so that was that was a good
thing and he's represented there I
actually feel like this should have had
some darker colour down below because
the real thing definitely has a dark
band around it so I don't think this is
the the best choice for how that's
that's shown there but they go
architecture sets do tend to remove a
lot of color they tend to clean things
up and abstract color depictions just in
general these obviously represent just
street lamps around the place that are
believe either painted or powder coated
in black it's a shame that right there
that could not be smooth there just
isn't a good piece that will fit into
that space around the outside you have
the Main Street that goes around the
place some avenues that Bend around the
entire square and that represents a taxi
there you have a double-decker bus I
like how this street is actually
elevated here angles up a bit and it's
just it's just attached with a clip back
here and then part of it falls into the
ground slightly got a towel along the
side to hold that in place and then the
other side has the exact same thing
going on just reversed positions of the
bus simple little build and the taxi up
there and you have these small-scale
tree
I think the trees on this side should
actually be a little bit larger from
photos of the place that I have seen but
yeah you can always customize that a
little bit I'm glad that there is a
little bit of variation in here it's not
just plain green and the builds there I
think three different types if I recall
correctly of a builds used here you know
again just for the sake of variation and
you can change that up when you do your
own if you want to make it look even a
little bit different you know but yeah I
think it's it's all done pretty well
taking a step back though I have to say
that from what I've seen of pictures of
the real place this model looks much
better much better than them the real
thing because it's it's so clean in it
it's so perfectly set up you know you
don't have as much age and patina on
things it's just wow it looks like an
architectural model to show you how good
a place could look after a a retrofit or
something I I like all of this I think
that the architecture of it is set up
very beautifully I like the fact that
you have this you know this rounded edge
here and a lot out most of what's good
about this is because of the real place
not not so much because of a Lego model
but the Lego model does do a very good
job I think of capturing the best points
of it I think the overall shape is nice
it's nice that again the Lego model
reduces the number of colors and just
makes it look so clean and pure and and
perfect it would have been great if they
could have people around in there though
I mean the smallest Lego people that you
that you can do are these little nano
figs and they're way too huge for the
scale but are they really I mean you
know adding in a number of those around
the place might have been cool maybe
even just doing a stack of of three
studs not might have even been a little
bit thicker I'm not sure just that's the
one thing that's missing here is is
patronage it needs needs people it's a
public square it's the only thing that's
really missing you got the vehicles
going around
the outside hopefully at some point in
the future leggo will figure out a way
to put in smaller than nano scale
depictions of people with pieces that
will be legal to include in in sets that
can potentially be used by kids I don't
know I don't know what they can do about
that but just overall I like the look of
this I like the greenery I think that
this whole building is beautiful
absolutely beautiful in so many ways and
uses really interesting building
techniques the whole thing is scaled so
small way that that scale when all said
and done with the build here are the
spare pieces that are left over
including one each of the printed tiles
up here and one each of the three
different colors of nano figs
they include with no printing on them I
feel like per Legos spare parts rules
there should not be two of these white
brackets minifig backpack bracket pieces
left over but for the life of me I could
not find any place in the build where
they they called for one or even an odd
number of them so I believe this is just
a fluke and there should only be one
spare of those in terms of value the
price depart ratio on this set looks
fantastic but of course it's a really
small set that's filled with 1 by 1
plates and tiles so the total volume of
stuff that you get here for the price
that you pay is not good like
architecture sets are very very very
rarely good values for the amount of
stuff the amount of plastic that you get
the amount of stuff that gets displayed
before you in the completed product that
said it did take me almost two hours to
build this which is about appropriate
given the the number of parts included
it really feels like a proper just
really really small scaled serious model
project to assemble so there's a lot of
stuff there it's just made up of mostly
really tiny pieces so it kind of depends
on how
you view value in that in that sense if
if you can appreciate the small details
and the really interesting building
techniques I think you'll end up liking
this even though it it is pretty
expensive for the amount of plastic
that's here I think it's a well done
architecture set I think it's something
that you can be happy to keep on display
long term because it just looks good
from so many angles and being able to
open up the back add so much more value
I think then leaving it all completely
flush and and sealed off so I really
appreciate that even though it was kind
of unnecessary and does increase the
part count does increase the price I
think it's definitely worth it there's
very little that I can really complain
about with this again being someone
who's not a member of the Trafalgar
Square Historical Society I can't
nitpick too much and as a lego model I
think it's very much a success and an
interesting thing to just have on
display at the end of the day if you
want to see the full almost to our build
of this you can check out my real-time
build which are recorded and published
in HD with 60 frames per second and
really good sound all the pieces
clicking together or if you don't want
to just throw that on for a couple hours
in the background or something while
you're doing other things you can see
the speed build version which condenses
it all down quite a bit
check out one of those if you'd like to
I will link to them on the in screen
right now and talk to you in soon
you
