39 replies to this topic

[Lorentzen]

Hello everybody - I've written an article on the many wonderful LEGO houses that have emerged from Billund since 1978 - the year the theme "Town" was introduced. My main focus is on the houses released in the theme "Town" and its subtheme "Leisure".

I hope you enjoy the read - it was an idea that came to me last year when The LEGO Group introduced the new set 8403 City House; a house that was the first of its kind in 15 years, and only the second of its kind since 1990.

I've uploaded the PDF file to my dropbox, and you can download the article by clicking on the link below:

http://dl.dropbox.co...e - article.pdf

Please let me know if you have suggestions to add or I have made some grammatical errors that I should edit.

Kristian

UPDATE: I've added a poll - we could use this topic to discuss whether or not we want more (official) smaller family homes in our LEGO Town, or if we think that the Fire Departments/Police Stations/Emergency Centers/Gas Stations/Creator houses/Large Exclusive buildings are fine enough to have in our Town plans

Edited by Lorentzen, 29 April 2011 - 01:53 PM.

[The Yellow Brick]

This is a really good article you've written I enjoyed reading about all of those fantastic classic sets.
How long did it take you to complete?

Edited by The Yellow Brick, 26 April 2011 - 07:28 PM.

[Lorentzen]

The Yellow Brick, on 26 April 2011 - 07:27 PM, said:

This is a really good article you've written I enjoyed reading about all of those fantastic classic sets.
How long did it take you to complete?

It took me three nights a couple of months back, but then I dropped it because I didn't know how to publish it properly.

Then I found out about dropbox and began to proof read my article.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read it - I know that it is rather long :)

[Zeon]

Very well done, an excellent reading :) !

Since I'm working on rebuilding most of these sets, I'm a bit prejudiced here. I see three points that could be improved (since you were asking for suggestions):
- maybe it would worth mentioning that these houses that you call classic houses are all missing their backsides for improved playability. (This feature alone makes a huge difference compared to the sets mentioned on the 3rd page and makes the more like the town sets like the firefighters' or the police)
- if you could dig up more CC or free images, that would be awesome (or even some samples from their building instructions from PICSL)
- if you were quoting BL prices, it would be an interesting addition to display parted out values.

I hope it didn't sound too geeky :)

keep up the nice work!

[lightningtiger]

Excellent article 'Lorentzen', it was a great read and hopefully next year we'll see more houses. Though I didn't notice but one of the creator range there, but still it's fantastic work and Brick On 'Lorentzen' !

[laka]

Thanks for the article, Kristian. Even though, I haven't read it yet, it seems to be pretty interesting reading. I look forward to read it tomorrow - being more fresh and more capable for reading  

Edited by laka, 26 April 2011 - 10:40 PM.

[Captain Bayonet]

Excellent job "Lorentzen". Keep on Brickin'

~Bayonet

[gotoAndLego]

I love when Lego gets creative with the set names like "House With Roof Windows".  

[Fuzzylegobricks]

Very good article! I enjoyed it. I too hope for more city houses.

[KielDaMan]

Brilliant article Kristian! Thanks for taking us to a trip down memory lane, it was very well-researched and truly an informative read. I've really learned a lot on the history of the LEGO house, from the humble beginnings of the classic 376 House with Garden to the 90s Town houses. Excellent work!

[ZO6]

Great read, Lorentzen!  This is a truly wonderful article you've put together  

I really love those classic houses.  They're so simple yet so appealing.  While I love all of the creator houses and the new 8403 City House, I wish TLC would release some smaller 100-300 piece houses with open backs.  In any case, I really like the direction that the latest wave of creator sets is taking, namely by making them more minifigure friendly.

[Lorentzen]

lightningtiger, on 26 April 2011 - 10:37 PM, said:

Though I didn't notice but one of the creator range there

I'm not sure I understand? I didn't include the Creator houses because they do not categorize as Classic Town houses (to me, that is)

[tsi]

Hallo Lorentzen,

thanks for your document, it was fun to read & a very good job!
What do you think about publishing in brickjournal/hispabrick?
In addition of your infos, I would like to see the original retail prices of the sets.

In my opinion, the bricklink prices dont't have too much in common with real streat prices. Bricklink set-prices mostly are prices like "for this price I'm willing to sell off the set from my collection, because I everytime can buy an other much cheaper copy".
On E*ay (at least here in Germany) much more sets are sold for a fractional amount of the high bricklink prices you mentioned. Compared to E*ay, bricklink is only a small special market for complete sets.




My 2Cents  

ThomaS

[Lorentzen]

Thanks for your feedback ThomaS :)

I'm definitely going to add the original retail prices in USD - that's a good idea :) but I still think that the Bricklink prices give us a good idea of how valuable these sets are to collectors.

The eBay values are of course also a pretty good and accurate ressource for those who want to find these sets for cheap. I'll add a list at the end of the document :)

I guess it would be pretty cool to have the article published, but not until I've edited it much more with the help from people on here.

[laka]

Indeed it's a brilliant article. So sad to think about that no houses were released after 1990, except for the Velux house. But great, if it's changing now. Though the city house from 2010 isn't a classic house, it's (hopefully) a new beginning for Town/City. For the years in between, the theme actually should have been called Street  

[Lorentzen]

Even though I haven't updated my article with the changes I plan to, it would still be interesting to hear from those who do not need LEGO to release sets with smaller houses like they used to do in the 1980's and 90's

I think that the smaller residential houses are a must for any LEGO town:
They represent the past (i.e. LEGO town past) and we can't  keep raising police station after police station and hospitals, gasoline stations and train stations etc without having small families to keep the public buildings and transportation occupied

[Zeon]

Lorentzen, on 28 April 2011 - 03:32 PM, said:

I think that the smaller residential houses are a must for any LEGO town:
They represent the past (i.e. LEGO town past) and we can't  keep raising police station after police station and hospitals, gasoline stations and train stations etc without having small families to keep the public buildings and transportation occupied

What do you get without some suburban townhouses?



Kowloon :)

Joke aside, I can totally understand if someone wants to build a crowded downtown-like city with modular style buildings. (Your point with the classic townhouses being the past of the lego city is totally valid, I'm thinking of a modern town with an old city area built with classic style, it could convince me to let modern houses into my classic town :) Hm...)

[legoguy475]

Very nice article, however, even though I have a large town, I am indifferent on houses. I would rather spend time making buildings like the Fire Station or the Police Station better. I do have some houses, but I think I can live with the modular buildings and Creator houses.

[Lorentzen]

The final version of my article has been added to my dropbox.

I've added some eBay prices and a little extra text and images here and there.

Thanks for all your nice comments so far - nice to know that I haven't written this article to my own enjoyment only ;)

[Praetorian]

This is a great article Kristian

It's good to have details of all the LEGO Town houses together in one place.

I think my favourite is 6365 Summer Cottage - a classic early '80s set.

[Lorentzen]

I think my favourites are 1472 - Vacation House from 1987 or 6349 Holiday Villa from 1988 - two of my favourite LEGO years for some strange reason (the other favourite year for me is 1989 because of the release of the initial Pirate line)

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Great article 'Lorentzen'. It's nice to look into the past. I hope we get new houses as well

[Legoist]

Modular buildings are definitely too expensive for kids, and even Creator house sets have usually be minimum 30e (only Beach House and Log Cabin, the others are more expensive), I think it would only be a good thing if TLG was able to introduce some tiny/small house sets in the 20e range, but I'm not sure if this is possible today.

There is certainly room for private houses and other civilian buildings in the City theme. IMHO a City house set is expected to have some more accessories compared to a Creator set, which usually has mostly generic bricks.

All in all, I think smaller-size buildings would be a good thing for KFOLs and some AFOLs too, because they would allow to create a much larger diorama compared to a modular buildings-based diorama with the same amount of bricks (therefore with the same cost).

EDIT: Also, I'm a fan of buildings without the back wall. Not so much for playability since I'm an AFOL, but perhaps because of "displayability", i.e. the idea that someone looking at my creations is able to enjoy the interior design without the need of touching anything

Edited by Legoist, 03 May 2011 - 07:46 AM.

[mrblue]

very good article! too bad there are no more like this covering other classic themes... (hint)
anyway, I gave my vote to the 2nd answer, but I was tempted by the 1st too!
classic lego houses, with furniture and no back wall are a good example of quality (front) and playability (back), but with modern techniques and beautiful interiors we started to get used since few years ago, I think I can handle the lack of the missing back wall.
I'm no more used to play with lego, and as an afol, I also prefer to look at my sets and knowing the roofs can be removed to access inside, compensate the back play feature of the past.
my only disappointment have been with the café corner interior, though lego realized their mistake and fixed the problem in the following sets.
as time passed by, lego became more expensive, also because of the piece count, but a good creator house, still is a beautiful house, so for me it's fine!

have a nice lego day
mrBlue

[Lorentzen]

mrblue, on 03 May 2011 - 08:28 AM, said:

very good article! too bad there are no more like this covering other classic themes... (hint)

I'm currently writing an article on the evolution of the LEGO car - the most sold car brand in the world - I think  

Now that LEGO has begun to release Creator sets with minifigs (Log Cabin, Light House and Hill Side House) I really hope that they won't forget about the regular houses - I really hope that they keep releasing houses like the recent "City House" - My LEGO town needs Modular houses such as Green Grocer, Cafe Corner etc, but also residential homes of a much smaller size...

Edited by Lorentzen, 06 May 2011 - 07:52 PM.