Review: 21007 Rockefeller Center

[Darth Dino]

Hi

as photographer, great fan of New York and its architecture and AFOL

as well the Lego Architecture Set 21007 Rockefeller Center seems to

me to be a must have. I also have been there many times including the

famous “Top of the Rock” observation platform – so there is no

hesitation from my side. But i am sure there are many of you out

there been interested in this set but not 100% convinced to get it.

Although it is a set from 2010 there are no reviews of this set at

Eurobricks right now. Time to change that:

Review: 21007 Rockefeller Center

Set Information:

Name: Rockefeller Center

Number: 21007

Theme: Architecture (Landmark Series)

Release: 2010

Parts: 240 (Bricklink) and 3 Extra Items

Price: EUR 39.90, USD 39.90

The Box:

The front shows the common design of today’s Architecture boxes:

with black background and prductshot on a building plan.

The back shows a photograph of the real building and gives some

additional information.

As special we get an “explosion” render on the side of the box.

It shows the whole model and gives us a first idea how many small

parts are used.

Contents:

If you open the black box from the front side you will get

greetings in form of well known phrase “Enjoy your building

experience”. That is exactly I am going to do! You will also

mention three bags (medium, small and smallest parts) but now

unsealed parts – I welcome that! Beside the bags there is the

obvious instruction on high quality paper.

You only got three main colors: black for the stand, light bluish

grey for the basement/pavement and tan for the buildings. The fouth

color is the rare pearl gold, but there are only two 1x1 round

plates of them.

The Parts:

The big bag shows you mostly plates, a couple of smaller bricks

and long 6x1 and 8x1 tiles.

The content of the medium bag contains a nice bunch of 2x1 tan

tiles, tan jumpers and 1x1 tan bricks with two studs on their

sides. There are also the unique printed 6x1 black tiles with

the Rockefeller and Center printing.

With the small bag comes some 1x1 tiles in light bluish grey and

tan, 1x1 and 1x2 tan plates and two (one is extra) 1x1 round pearl

gold plates. I made all three parts images with the same scale

that you can see easily how many parts are in and which dimensions

they have.

Overall there are 243 Parts (240+3), but many of them are small

or very small (1x1 tiles, 1x1 and 1x2 plates). No wonder they are

all together only 160 grams (5.6 oz or 0.35 lb). Compared to that

the Lego 5512 box (4+, generic brick box) contains 1600 parts at

+2 kgs for a similar price tag (40 €).

Instructions:

Like the box, this is in landscape format. There are a couple

of (high quality paper) pages that show the history of the

building complex. E.g. it is mentioned that the well known

“construction workers sitting unsecured on a beam at lunch”

originated when they build the tallest building (former RCA,

now GE building).

The random instruction page shows you always the piece callout,

red surrounded parts for better differentiation and renderings of

substeps. Sometimes there are steps where you have to place ~20

pieces, and sometimes only a single 4x1 tan plate, followed by

another single 4x1 tan plate. It seems to me they had to fill

empty pages.

The Build:

As real buildings you start from the bottom. The basement is

13x12 studs wide and shows the Rockefeller Plaza right in the

center. That is the place where the skating rink is in winter.

Like the real skating rink its level is deeper than the pavement.

Step two adds tan for the buildings (only one parts is in light

bluish grey) and grey for the walkways between them. The small

pearl gold 1x1 round plate symbolizes the golden Prometheus

Statue – bringing the sacred fire to man – and rare colors to AFOLs.

Step three shows the jumperwork. This is necessary because the

real building is highly interlaced.

Step four shows the finished buildings along the W48th Street

(south side).

Step five adds the 70 stories high GE Building (former RCA

Building). The snotwork captures the shape of the building

very well. When closing my eyes I can see myself taking photos

from “Top of the Rock”, the (most?) famous observation platform.

Step six adds the missing buildings along the W51st Street

(north side). The Radio Music Hall is in the rear right building.

Building and photography takes more than one hour together. I am

sure fast builders that do not follow the “Enjoy your building

experience” rule can be much faster. But maybe not that fast:

The Complete Set:

The Lego model of the Rockefeller Center building complex is

easy to recognize for those that know the real buildings. But

maybe it is not that iconic that non-visitors know what it is

like. My wife for example did not know what it should represent,

although half of my house is full of New York photographs

(including the Rockefeller Center).

Nevertheless it is very detailed for the scale. I also like to

way it produces shadows on the other buildings and add so more

detail and realism. But is miss grillie tiles for the front of

the GE Builsing to add virtual windows.

The bird’s eye view will get a look at the plaza and the Prometheus

Statue surrounded by the buildings. They all together never

look dull because of the individual but related design of each

building. I am glad Lego did this set as “Rockefeller Center”

and not only as “GE Building”.

Comparison:

My last time I have been there plus making photos, I took not care

to get all buildings together on a single picture. But this one

shows in a good way how Lego reproduced the assembly levels of

the GE Building both on the front and on the sides. In the front

of the picture you see the Prometheus Statue and the skating rink.

It is a wonder, 80 years ago, they did most of the buildings

exactly Lego did today!

Conclusion:

Design: 9 - Unless someone did it better in the same

scale it must be a 10, but is see some space for improvement

(grillie tiles). It is also easy to recognize.

Build: 9 - Only the main building build was a bit repetitive.

Lego surprisingly often uses jumper constructions where only one

(of two) stud is connected to the next level. Nevertheless it is

well connected and do not fall off easily.

Parts: 8 – nothing special, beside the pearl gold plate.

If you like tan, this is a set for you.

Value: 8 – it is a 2 or 1 if you do not value the work Adam

Reed Tucker spent into designing this model. It is very expensive

just looking at the parts (243) or grams (160) you get. As mentioned

a pure part pack (5512) is 15 times heavier and has 7 times more

parts for the same price tag. But I care about the designers work

and I am willing to spend money on that. I think every Architecture

customer is doing that too.

Overall: 9/10. I care more about the design and the whole

building process than on money. That is what Architecture sets are

made for - to “Enjoy your building experience”.

Enjoy the reading too and thank you for all the comments.

Dino

[legolijntje]

Nice review. but even better photos That are really good photos

But not only the photos are good, also the text is very well done. No unnecessary text.

I have only one little thing; on the first photo of "the complete set", it looks like it's not very straight

BTW; I added this to Brickset

Edited May 13, 2012 by legolijntje

[Rufus]

Thanks for the lovely review with such beautiful pictures!

And it fills a hole in the Architecture Review Index.

You should consider joining the Reviewers Academy: with pictures like this, you'll sail through.

[WhiteFang]

Outstanding review!

As what Rufus had mentioned, you ought to give the Reviewers Academy a shot. With skills like yours, I am sure it will be a breeze for you. I enjoyed your images and your animated gif to show the building process is a nice touch. Well done and I thank you for sharing it with us.

Also, added a poll in this review.

[Darth Dino]

Hi

@legolijntje: Yes you are right, the GE building is in some images not 100% straight. A small tile or plate has fallen onto the "streets" ;) I had to put ky large King-Kong-ish fingers through the buildings to get the missing part. That might be a reason for the bent building. But i had seen it not before i "closed my photostudio". Everything was completely disassembeled :( It would cost me an hour or so to redo the shot.

@ Rufus and Whitefang: Thank you for the kinds comments on my photography. I really care about that. Unfortunately doing a review, even for such a small set, is very time consuming. If i have time to do so, i better spent it into a new review than onto the Reviewers Academy. Sorry i do not want to sound arrogant or similar - i am no native englsih speaker - but i did commercialized macro product photography since 2001. I still know there is ever improvement on ANY image possible, but it is also a question of time. If i had to setup the lightning and background for 1-2 hours to review a 1 hour set (building time) there is something wrong ;) Unlike some others (i have seen that) i do not have a permanent photobooth for macros. Right now i am more into people and architecture ;)

On the other hand: do not expect much reviews for me in the near future. I promised some day to do a review on the Lego 8466 Offroader. This set is huge and i was not able to to the photography for all the building steps. I better kept building it with my son, than caring about the right light ;) The only change to do a review again would be a smaller set that out of production, because all new sets are review by the "real freaks traveling to London to do a comparison" - even before it is released! :)

Dino

Edited May 13, 2012 by Darth Dino

[Solscud007]

You should put a small green cone ontop of the gold circle. Then it could be the Rockefeller Xmas tree.

[Roger Rabbit]

Great review of a great set, and absolutely stunning photos!!

This is actually a pretty special set for me, as I got it in the Lego Brand store in Rockefeller Centre on a trip to New York, which means I can point out exactly where I got it on the model (something which very few people can say about Lego models)!

Well done on a brilliant review.