Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[Humdrum]

4 hours ago, RogerSmith said:

, but e.g. cool yellow would be another great choice.

I'd love to see a 'cool yellow' modular, like your beautiful record store moc. But I do wonder if Lego would need to make
more elements in this colour first. According to this list on brickset the 'longest' element available is a 1x4 brick.

You obviously made a great moc out of the existing pieces, but would it be feasible for Lego to do the same?

[ReplicaOfLife]

4 hours ago, Humdrum said:

I'd love to see a 'cool yellow' modular, like your beautiful record store moc. But I do wonder if Lego would need to make
more elements in this colour first. According to this list on brickset the 'longest' element available is a 1x4 brick.

You obviously made a great moc out of the existing pieces, but would it be feasible for Lego to do the same?

Back when I built it, the parts selection was even more limited - the most arduous missing piece back then was the 1x1 brick, which came out in cool yellow just last year. The addition of the 1x3 brick in 2017 also is very useful. For my modular I only had 1x2, 1x4, 1x1x5 and 1x2x5 bricks and the 1x6x5 wall panel available.

Imho, the only thing missing now to make it feasible to build a modular in that color without resorting to the large wall panels is a 1x6 or 1x8 brick. Adding that should be no problem.

[antp]

I don't think they would dare using these large panels in a modular.

And some didn't have bricks longer than 1x4 (e.g. the Diner with the teal parts, though that it only concerns parts of a floor and not the whole building)

[ReplicaOfLife]

11 minutes ago, antp said:

I don't think they would dare using these large panels in a modular.

And some didn't have bricks longer than 1x4 (e.g. the Diner with the teal parts, though that it only concerns parts of a floor and not the whole building)

I'm almost certain they wouldn't use those in a modular. But as I said, all it'd take was to release e.g. the 1x8 brick in light yellow and they'd be set.

 

As for modulars using small bricks, the Detective's Office infuriatingly only used bricks up to 1x4 in size in the entire blue portion of the building. It's one of the many pet peeves I have with that set, as it needlessly drove up the part count of a set that already was physically too small to begin with. And there were comparatively few larger bricks in the rest of the building, too.

Edited November 10, 2018 by RogerSmith

[Kalahari134]

I'd rather have something in Dark Orange. If only because the colour is so rare. There are plenty of inspirational red brick buildings around.

Gothic

Art Deco

Italianate

[BrickFit26]

I liked the dark red colored bricks that were used in the Winter Village Fire Station. Thhat color would look good in a modular. 

I would also like them to incorporate that piece from Chima. Its the brick that has the face of a lion, looks like a sculpture. I dont know what the brick is called. But adding a few of those into the detail of the outside of the mpdular would be incredible.

[The_Nev]

1 hour ago, BrickFit26 said:

I liked the dark red colored bricks that were used in the Winter Village Fire Station. Thhat color would look good in a modular. 

I would also like them to incorporate that piece from Chima. Its the brick that has the face of a lion, looks like a sculpture. I dont know what the brick is called. But adding a few of those into the detail of the outside of the mpdular would be incredible.

This one?

Brick, Modified 2 x 3 x 3 with Cutout and Lion Head

[cimddwc]

14 hours ago, RogerSmith said:

Back when I built it, the parts selection was even more limited - the most arduous missing piece back then was the 1x1 brick

Yeah, I was glad I had a big bag of 1x1 plates from Legoland when I built my trikes store. :)

I wouldn’t be surprised if they'd include a rare or new color in future modulars, whether it's a limited area as in the Diner or full walls as in PR.

[ReplicaOfLife]

5 hours ago, BrickFit26 said:

I would also like them to incorporate that piece from Chima. Its the brick that has the face of a lion, looks like a sculpture. I dont know what the brick is called. But adding a few of those into the detail of the outside of the mpdular would be incredible.

They already did that waaaay back in Market Street (albeit just one of them).

30 minutes ago, cimddwc said:

Yeah, I was glad I had a big bag of 1x1 plates from Legoland when I built my trikes store. :)

I wouldn’t be surprised if they'd include a rare or new color in future modulars, whether it's a limited area as in the Diner or full walls as in PR.

I mostly got around that as my outer facade is 2 studs wide. But in a few places, I also had to resort to the 1x1 plates.

[Aanchir]

20 hours ago, antp said:

I don't think they would dare using these large panels in a modular.

And some didn't have bricks longer than 1x4 (e.g. the Diner with the teal parts, though that it only concerns parts of a floor and not the whole building)

Well, they’ve used the large 1x6x5 wall panels in transparent colors as window glass, so I could certainly imagine them using them again in a solid color — but only if they needed the texture and/or the open space on the inside of the panel for some reason, not simply as a substitute for smaller standard bricks.

[antp]

Indeed, but for a glass that's not really comparable For these sometimes the bigger part gives a better result

[Faefrost]

22 hours ago, antp said:

I don't think they would dare using these large panels in a modular.

And some didn't have bricks longer than 1x4 (e.g. the Diner with the teal parts, though that it only concerns parts of a floor and not the whole building)

It isn’t that “they wouldn’t dare”. They likely will use them if they create the desired texture or effect. They just wouldn’t use them as the core foundation of the building. There are no bad parts. Just bad part usage. Panels and Burps serve a purpose and can be great when creatively used. 

[Faefrost]

On 11/4/2018 at 12:31 PM, Aanchir said:

Some of the parts from these figures definitely showed up on the BrickInside parts database back when they had some kind of access to official renders and part information for unreleased parts (many of which were later confirmed as authentic in other leaks). Now that LEGO has caught on to that security issue, though, the BrickInside database no longer shows those future parts, but I can verify that some of these parts were among those that had shown up there.

The idea that there ever was a consistent "original style" has been disproven time and time again anyway. The series has included buildings that were variously Amsterdam-inspired, San Francisco-inspired, New York-inspired, London-inspired, Los Angeles-inspired, Paris-inspired, Chicago-inspired, Miami-inspired, etc. Even the attempt to define pre-Downtown Diner buildings as "pre-1940s" implies more consistency than was actually present. The cornerstone on Fire Brigade implies it was built in 1932, while the one on Town Hall implies it was built in 1891, a difference of over 40 years. For that matter, one of Grand Emporium's most likely inspirations, Harrod's Department Store in London, specifically the design it's had since being rebuilt after a fire in 1883! So even the "time period" that supposedly unified those earlier buildings represents architectural styles varying by around 50 years, if not longer!

Any idea that the modular buildings were all meant to reflect a uniform real-world place and time is just AFOLs trying to impose order on a line that has ALWAYS thrived on variation and defying expectations. The same can be said of other theories that try to predict/make sense of the modular buildings like the idea that "every modular building set contains a clue to the next one". With Downtown Diner being groundbreaking in some of the biggest ways to date, I hardly think that we can expect the buildings to begin showing greater consistency in their designs/inspirations than they ever had to begin with.

And anyhow, I don't know that I'm comfortable with the idea that a Western pastiche of Chinese architecture (Grauman's Chinese Theater) is somehow a more valid source of inspiration for a modular building than ACTUAL Chinese architecture…

Hmmm, interesting. If that's true then I wonder what it could be… let alone what those figures could actually be for…

Back to the drawing board, then!

There actually is a “definable era” to most of the Modular buildings. It’s just a bit broader than most realize. Typically they all fall in or around what Is characterized as the Steam/Diesel Transition Era. A period that saw the rise of the automobile as dominant. But Main Street was still Main Street. And the downtown city street was still the hub of life and community. Generally this period is from the early 1930’s to the late 60’s in the US and Canada. With some variation to the time frame in Europe. With that said, the Modulars represent simply a feel of a downtown. Not a precise moment in time. FB is pretty clearly the 1930-40 era based on the fire truck. DD is 50’s based on its car. PC is 30’s-40’s based on its movie, but these ate imprecise and subject to viewers interpretation. It’s a Lego City, not a perfect moment of time model railroad. Buildings last a long time and the same street will have many different styles. 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Faefrost

[paupadros]

On 10 de novembre de 2018 at 10:30 AM, RogerSmith said:

A black modular would be a spectacularly bad idea. Unless there's really good lighting, you wouldn't be able to make out any details, so what's the point? Plus, apart from giant skyscrapers with black glass all around, black buildings are very rare in real life.

The latter is also the reason why we propably won't see a modular with a really bright predominant color - bright red, bright orange, brigt blue, lime green, most of the weird Friends colors etc. There are very few places where you'll find buildings in such colors in real life.

I agree that a black modular would most likely be terrible. It's certainly true that such colours are not prodominant in many countries but I think we've had enough tan for a little while. Sand colours work well but both sand green and sand blue are (rather surprisingly) somewhat common modular colours.

Correct me if I'm wrong but (like someone has said) Dark Orange is still on the waiting list for being main colour for a modular. Well, if we don't count the laundromat in BB. Industrial architecture with its brickwork is fascinating and would work well for a supporting structure. @RogerSmith, everytime I've tried building with cool yellow I've had to move to a stronger shade of yellow as it withered away once everything else was in place. Not saying it can't look great, just my experience.

A thing modulars have a bit failed to have recently is a defined shape. Yes they do have main places to look at (usually the top of the building) but they seem less planned than PR for instance. A prominent shape or silhouette is something I would love to see. When you draw out the outline of the recent models, they are most of them boxes. Why not triangles or curves?

Edited November 11, 2018 by paupadros

[koalayummies]

52 minutes ago, paupadros said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but (like someone has said) Dark Orange is still on the waiting list for being main colour for a modular.

Town Hall is predominantly Dark Orange.

[Kalahari134]

1 hour ago, koalayummies said:

Town Hall is predominantly Dark Orange.

Indeed it was but that was quite a while ago and the run was rather short so prices for dark orange bricks are going up and up. 

[darkhorse00]

7 hours ago, Faefrost said:

There actually is a “definable era” to most of the Modular buildings. It’s just a bit broader than most realize. Typically they all fall in or around what Is characterized as the Steam/Diesel Transition Era. A period that saw the rise of the automobile as dominant. But Main Street was still Main Street. And the downtown city street was still the hub of life and community. Generally this period is from the early 1930’s to the late 60’s in the US and Canada. With some variation to the time frame in Europe. With that said, the Modulars represent simply a feel of a downtown. Not a precise moment in time. FB is pretty clearly the 1930-40 era based on the fire truck. DD is 50’s based on its car. PC is 30’s-40’s based on its movie, but these ate imprecise and subject to viewers interpretation. It’s a Lego City, not a perfect moment of time model railroad. Buildings last a long time and the same street will have many different styles. 

I remember there is a computer in Town Hall. That’s one of the Modular building which I do not have. That might really create some confusion if we are to consider that computer, noting that that style of computer only exists somewhere in the 1980s.

In any case, I am ignoring that computer thingy. My thoughts are more align to the era of the buildings are designed with reference to 1930-1950s. Am trying to add on MOCs of cars for each modular buildings as with reference to 1930-1950s.

Edited November 12, 2018 by darkhorse00

[The_Nev]

The buildings are definitely not all set in the same era, although the architecture may be a similar style. Evidence of this is seen in the computer in Town Hall, while there's a typewriter in the brick bank. While cookies and sweets are prohibited in Detective's Office, there is a baker selling these in Assembly Square. The fire brigade, palace cinema and diner all have cars from different time periods. Town Hall was built in 1891, while Fire Brigade was built in 1932, according to the dates on the stonework. Combine this evidence with the Computer and fire truck, and we can establish that the town hall building is set in the end of the 20th century, making the building about 100 years old, and the fire brigade is only new, with the truck from the same era as the building, around the 1930's. The same reasoning places the Diner in the 1950's, where the car matches the era of the architecture. You could even figure out that Assembly Square is set after 2014, as the Apartment contains the Creator Expert Volkswagen Camper, released in 2014.

[Brick Dangerous]

^ A point well made

[just_one]

i just want a hint or something...come on LEGO!! its november 13rd already

[The_Nev]

15 minutes ago, just_one said:

i just want a hint or something...come on LEGO!! its november 13rd already

I know right? I was looking back through the old pages, and they "knew" that Detective's Office was the 2015 modular in August! Granted it wasn't official then, and it took them a couple of months of speculating what it would look like, with a few leaks now and then, but still, at least there were leaks!

But it makes you think, what if we've gotten a leak without realising? Might have to read back over these past pages...

[Bricked1980]

21 minutes ago, just_one said:

i just want a hint or something...come on LEGO!! its november 13rd already

Well last year the first leaked image of Downtown Diner appeared on November 18th I think. So if it follows the same pattern then maybe we could be just days away from finding out what the next set will be. 

[Jasper Joppe Geers]

But what if they decided not to do Modulars any longer?... 

They can't continue doing these forever can they?

[The_Nev]

2 minutes ago, Jasper Joppe Geers said:

But what if they decided not to do Modulars any longer?... 

They can't continue doing these forever can they?

You're not wrong. But as its such a successful line, if/when they do end it, I imagine it would be planned, unless there is serious trouble at Lego. So they'd announce the last modular as it being the last modular. Doing that would also make every non-retired modular sell like crazy. 

But even when the Creator Expert modular line stops, I imagine that would open the door to modulars coming from Lego Ideas.  I think they won't release any modulars from that platform because it intrudes on the actual line. But if the actual line stops, that's no longer a problem.

[MAB]

On 11/12/2018 at 10:03 AM, The_Nev said:

and the fire brigade is only new, with the truck from the same era as the building, around the 1930's. The same reasoning places the Diner in the 1950's, where the car matches the era of the architecture. You could even figure out that Assembly Square is set after 2014, as the Apartment contains the Creator Expert Volkswagen Camper, released in 2014.

 

Or FB is set in the 2010s and there is a re-enactment going on using an old fire truck.