Svelte

REVIEW: 10211 Grand Emporium

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263 members have voted

  1. 1. On a scale of 1 to 5

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4350009028_c589e8b61c_b.jpg

What Fire Brigade? Aa, you mean the Fire "out of scale" Brigade! :hmpf_bad:

I love GE thou. And I just can't wait until someone makes it a skyskraper. It will look like the flat Iron Building!

GE will be my second modular building after CC. The only two looking good enough so far! :classic:

Edited by Ferdik

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out of scale? :wacko:

Yes, just look at it! With two floors it should be smaller in both height and width to look good.

But I'm having hope in the line. GE looks good.

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For the fire Brigade i think two floors is just fine. You can't expect to

have every building in the modular series to be three floor standard...

I do not think it is fair to judge the sets when put together and saying

it looks nice or not. I enjoyed every modular house so far, and when

put together, i made some differences to fit them to the rest of the

buildings i created myself. GE to be done very soon!!

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For the fire Brigade i think two floors is just fine. You can't expect to

have every building in the modular series to be three floor standard...

I do not think it is fair to judge the sets when put together and saying

it looks nice or not. I enjoyed every modular house so far, and when

put together, i made some differences to fit them to the rest of the

buildings i created myself. GE to be done very soon!!

The sets can have how many floors they want. Variation is good. But Fire Brigade looks out of scale compare with the others. And I think it's very fair to judge them put togheter. Because that's what the sets are meant to be.

Edited by Ferdik

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The sets can have how many floors they want. Variation is good. But Fire Brigade looks out of scale compare with the others. And I think it's very fair to judge them put togheter. Because that's what the sets are meant to be.

Yes, variation is good, perhaps even nescesary. But i don't think that the FB or GE is designed while

looking at CC GG and MS put together. They fit because of the standard on the baseplates.

Of course the FB has two higher floors, but come on, its a Fire Brigade! Even in the real world

a Fire Brigade has a complete different construction than a Green Grocer... I don't mind.

There are more details that actually don't fit.. The Grand Emporium for example does have only

an escalator up to the other floor, not one down. Just because it would take up to much space

on the ground floor. That's up to us Moccers to put that right! :)

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Yes, variation is good, perhaps even nescesary. But i don't think that the FB or GE is designed while

looking at CC GG and MS put together. They fit because of the standard on the baseplates.

Of course the FB has two higher floors, but come on, its a Fire Brigade! Even in the real world

a Fire Brigade has a complete different construction than a Green Grocer... I don't mind.

There are more details that actually don't fit.. The Grand Emporium for example does have only

an escalator up to the other floor, not one down. Just because it would take up to much space

on the ground floor. That's up to us Moccers to put that right! :)

Yes, Fire Brigades in real world perhaps have differen't construction than other buildings, but they are not out of scale. :tongue: Just imagine to add a third floor on FB and you will see how silly it looks compare to the other buildings.

Ofcourse with Lego you can mod and build whatever you want. But if I buy a model I'm looking for a certain quality, not ending up totally rebuilt it because it's having bad design. And that's why I dind't buy FB.

But I like GE and I hope the serie will continue shine like the last building. :classic:

Edited by Ferdik

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Yes, Fire Brigades in real world perhaps have differen't construction than other buildings, but they are not out of scale. :tongue: Just imagine to add a third floor on FB and you will see how silly it looks compare to the other buildings.

A bit of an off-topic discussion in a review thread, don't you think? With the risk of joining that discussion, but hopefully to put an end to it ( :wink: ), check out the pictures on flickr below and you'll see that Manhattan fire stations indeed tend to have much higher floors - not just the ground floor, but also the second and third - compared to neighboring structures. As to the width: for a one-bay firehouse it indeed is a little wide, but not totally out-of-scale.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2661408948/ ; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2580293763/ ; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2539462764/ ; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2811776108/ ; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jag9889/2580817484/

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I built my GE over the weekend, and must say that it is a very nice model. I love the dark green windows partially covered by the arches. I also like the four horizontal dark tan tile assemblies, although the two front walls aren't that sturdy (did any of you have this issue). Overall, I found the build to the GE fairly easy, and I'm sure it took me less time than any of the other modulars (I think even the Fire Brigade).

I do agree with the comments that the floors are a bit empty. I think the toy department could have benefited from a few more toys, like those contained in the Winter Toy Shop (that gives me an idea). I love the chandelier, and surprisingly, it wasn't at all tricky to build. Another con is the back door with the arches - sort of a strange design.

Overall, it's still a fantastic set, and I would highly recommend it to any City fan.

Here's a shot in my Train Town:

gett1.jpg

(still working on the layout)

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Greetings! :classic:

I have never really paid much attention to the modular building series until the GE came out. After seeing all the excitment, I am now awaiting the delivery of my own copy of GE (which is schedule to arrive on Tuesday). I also am taking a second look at the GG set! Nice review!

I would grab the GG before summers end, I would hate for you to miss that set. I will most likely buy a few more if they go on sale.

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I bought and built my GE today. I have to admit that I was disappointed when I saw the first pictures, two of the floors look identical and kind of repetitive and beige, but having built it, it looks perfectly wonderful. It looks great next to the FB, which I also got recently and still have standing. My favourite detail is the green frames down the centre of the windows, which at first I thought was a bit odd, having the windows offset like that, but now I can see why and it looks brilliant. Like all modular sets, you have to see the real thing to really appreciate it, not just the pictures.

Incidentally, the FB doesn't look out of scale to me... the ground floor is a fire engine garage, so it makes sense for it to have quite a high ceiling, like most garages. And by 'garage', I mean vehicle workshop, not just a place where they park the thing. The first floor... well, some rooms do have high ceilings, you know?

I'm having trouble reconciling the old fashioned fire engine with the modern escalators in the building next door, though. I think it will be a museum piece that they keep around, sometime taking it out for charity runs and stuff.

Edited by David Thomsen

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Grand Emporium is outstanding! Thanks for this wonderful and detailed review! For me it's definitely a must-get! There are some quite amazing details like the escalator, for instance! I hope to have one copy in my collection soon.

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BUMP

I built my GE over the last few days. This is my first modular building and it's huge, much bigger than I had expected. :sweet: I had seen it before at events and store displays, but you only get a true sense of its size after building it yourself. It's so tall that I will need to lower the sign on the roof to make it fit in my display shelves. :tongue:

The ground floor exterior looks perfect. I love the corrugated pillars and store displays. On the other hand, the arches and tall, thin windows on the upper floors give it a somewhat "official" feel to my eyes. It seems more in line with a government building than a glitzy department store. However, it still looks quite modern and fits in reasonably well with regular City sets, which is why I like this set much more than the previous modular buildings.

The interior seems rather bare given the amount of floor space, especially the upper floors. The existing interior details are wonderful, but there need to be more of them. I'm going to put in more tables and trinkets in there, and add more minifigs.

Until now, I wasn't a fan of tiled floors since minifigs don't attach to them, but this set has changed my opinion to some extent. They look great and also allow minifigs to face any direction, instead of having to be aligned with the studs. Modern minifigs have a weak grip on their feet and don't stay on well on baseplates anyway.

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Haha! CP5670 converted to the CITY side! :tongue:

I am glad you like this set. Months later, the Green Grocer still remains my favourite of all of the modulars, but the Emporium does hold up pretty well. It's great for parts, too - perhaps the best of all of them. Built it looks quite dense but all spread out you can see just how much goes into this building.

I agree about the weak grip of baseplates - what I'd like to see in a tiled floor is some compromise between smoothness with a few select studs thrown in at different points for fig positioning.

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I've always liked regular City stuff, but was kind of lukewarm on these modular buildings until this one came out. It has now inspired me to build some MOCs like this. :thumbup:

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i finally got around to finish building this monster to find that i was missing 2 x 3mm rigid hose (TLG are sending replacement parts) and what i got extra was a 1 x 4 LBG tile?? that isnt even in the set at all... and a extra sting with studs... for the window cleaner,1 one more and he could have cleaned the second floor windows....

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That was a great full review. Very detailed and amazing. I've tried To do my own but Don't know where to post such a link,

style. Love to hear something :classic: back.

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That was a great full review. Very detailed and amazing. I've tried To do my own but Don't know where to post such a link, Youtube link style. Love to hear something :classic: back.

Maybe you should start a new thread to show/promote your review and just comment on Svelte's in this one :wink:

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Great review! I love the Grand Emporium more than one time I have considered purchasing another one.

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Rather late to the party but: great review of a great set. :classic:

Though I purchased my GE when it first came out, I only got around to building it this weekend (pauses for gasps of shock and horror to subside).

When doing the top floor assembly, I found that I was short TEN 1x2 dark tan plates (the ones that make the distinctive 'stripe' on the walls). So, I contacted S@H. They're sending me the replacements.

Very cool.

So, I went back to see if there was any way I could complete the model, instead of having it sit there for the next two weeks, waiting for the parts...and that's when I noticed it...I wasn't actually SHORT the parts...they were in a different colour! Instead of the dark tan they were supposed to be, the remaining parts were in LIGHT tan!

Anybody else run into this? See below. (and yes, *I* changed the baseplate, it came with tan, not dark bley)

DSCN1120.jpg

Edited by Ogre

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