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Not even a hoax really, it was just someone's wishlist that someone else picked up and misinterpreted.

I've been doing this with the Robie House for over a year now. I think I'm going to finally cave and get it though since I have an opportunity to get it for 40% off and should be getting a bonus soon as well. (Only trouble is that by the time I know whether I get a bonus, it will be too late for the extra discount, but let's be honest, that's probably not going to stop me.)

Great review as always! I definitely want to get the derby girl, and now that I see that printed wine bottle, I'll probably get the waiter as well. Too bad they're both only two to a case... The rest don't particularly interest me, but I can certainly recognize that they are very well designed. Best police officer TLG has ever done.

The instructions for the new Creator sets are online, so I was looking at the Power Mech and came across this grey SNOT brick. Is this a new piece?

I believe it's a... frying pan. This theme is just chock-full of NPUs.

It was mostly demolished, but a few parts of it - the central lobby wing and reflecting pool - were disassembled and relocated to a museum. So that makes me wonder if the set will be the whole original building or just the surviving portion.

Awesome, thanks for the info! Looks like it's already on Amazon (France) listed at EUR 84.40. Next year is going to get expensive for me - especially considering the cost of additional shelving since I'm running out of display space... Pretty bummed that there's still nothing about 21015 though.

This is awesome. I love that you've even included a microfig to represent Jerry's Superman figure!

That's the point. Nice work, Spock! Do you have any more clear cheese slopes to smooth out the angles of the wings? I think you can get them from Pick-a-Brick as well.

I'm really loving that new Strat-style guitar in the stage set - I hope we'll see more of it, maybe with a CMF or two.

You're right - I just tried putting an ADU helmet on one of my Galaxy Patrol figs, and it doesn't fit all the way down on the head stud.

Looking through the inventory (of the 2008 version), I don't see many parts that are too terribly rare - the sticker sheet is going for $20 though. At a very rough estimate, I'd say you could probably piece it together for a little over $200.

This might be news and it might be nothing, but the Cuusoo site is going to be down for server maintenance from 6:00 to 7:00 GMT on the 13th. I can't help but wonder if there will be an announcement when it comes back up.

The only thing I know for sure is that the China plant specializes in the more complex molds and printing - intricate molds with different colors printed on, such as Jack Sparrow's hairpiece, or minifig legs with front and side printing, like Wonder Woman's, tend to come from that facility. And as mentioned above, they are usually packaged in their own bags in sets. The collectible Minifigures have a very high proportion of such parts, so the entire line is manufactured there since (I assume) that's the most cost-effective approach. Every LEGO package should have a note somewhere on it about where the components were made; most of the ones I have mention Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. A Prince of Persia set I have came from all four of those plus China and Sweden. So for most sets, it seems to be a very international effort. Those notes just refer to "components," though, which may or may not be the LEGO pieces themselves - for all I know, one of those locations could just be a printing facility for instructions or something like that. If I recall correctly, Denmark is still the "hub" factory, and all of the multiple-source components are packaged together there before being shipped out to the various distribution centers.

OK, I see where you're coming from. I do, however, think Le Corbusier was something of a foregone conclusion for this line - as soon as the Farnsworth House set came out, I knew we'd see this set sooner or later, just to round out the "Big Three" of modern architecture. Once you've got FLLW and Mies you pretty much have to acknowledge Corbusier. (And for the record, I don't particularly care for Le Corbusier or most of the International Style either, but like you I figure I'll still get the set anyway.) I would like to see more early buildings, too, though - a Palladian villa would be pretty easily translated to LEGO. And given my own personal inclinations, I even think the theme's focus on modernism could stand to move forward a bit; the medium's a natural fit for postmodern and deconstructivist works as well. Beyond all my opinions about where LEGO Architecture could/should go, though, I definitely have to give Michael Hepp an enormous amount of credit for giving me a renewed (if slightly grudging...) appreciation for a building I've generally hated since the first week of architecture school. I'll probably be picking this one up come December - when I get an extra employee discount. You might have heard about it earlier; some vague info - a (misspelled) name and price - was leaked back in February.

Since this is an Architect Series model, it doesn't make sense to ask "why did they choose this building instead of [other building in France]?" The designer chose to do a building by Le Corbusier, and this is his best-known building (among people who know anything about architecture, at least) so it was the obvious choice. The architect is the deciding factor here, not the location.

Great review Rufus! This set presents a dilemma for me - can my love of LEGO outweigh my general antipathy toward Corbusier? (Answer: yeah, probably.) I knew it was only a matter of time before a Villa Savoye set came out - after Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies, a Le Corbusier set was inevitable, and this was the obvious choice for it. (It's a far less surprising choice if you think of it as a Le Corbusier building, rather than a Paris building, if that makes sense.) About the red and blue plates - they're completely hidden in the final build; I suspect they're just there as visual markers so you can more clearly see where to place things. Oh, and GRogall - I don't suppose you've tracked down anything on 21015 yet?

There's a gorgeous corner florist here in Cincinnati that I think would look awesome as a modular: The ground floor facade is painted light purple - would be a great opportunity to incorporate Medium Lavender bricks into a modular!

I went back to the first Town Hall thread and noticed we first got info about it on 24 August 2011, so maybe we will have something soon. I'm still betting on a restaurant.

Does the pencil holder actually include those pencils as well?

I really love this little set! It was a Dutch exclusive if I recall correctly, so it was a bit pricey for me to get one in the States, but I got it off Bricklink earlier this year for an anniversary present. My partner loves pandas as much as I love LEGO, so this made for a perfect gift!

I saw this turn up on Bricklink a few days ago when I was looking for letter tiles; I'm guessing it'll be out on September 1st. I'll definitely pick this up when I go get a few Series 8 Minifigures. Letter and number tiles and a printed LEGO logo 2x2 - I bet a lot of AFOLs are going to be wanting this! My plan exactly!

All other things being equal, most transparent parts have a stronger hold than their opaque counterparts - the stack of seventeen clear 1x2s in Fallingwater springs most readily to my mind - but in this particular case, the bricks don't have the center pin, which turns out to be a major factor.

PC is definitely sturdier than ABS, but it's not enough to make up for the lack of a center pin in the transparent 1x2s. I ran a quick test on this using two bridges, one built out of transparent 1x2s and one with white. Each was a stack of 20 bricks, turned horizontally, and supported only at the ends. I tested their load-bearing capacity using pennies (since they're a fairly consistent weight that I could add incrementally) and after a few tests, the transparent bridge supported a maximum of 67 before failing, whereas the white bridge held 194. Of course, you're going to get diminishing returns the longer you build your bridge, but even at this relatively small scale it's clear that the central pin makes a huge difference. Hope this helps!

Oy. I'm having trouble even imagining such a scenario, but probably more musical instruments and some recording equipment, since that was my main addiction before coming back into the LEGO fold. But every time I find myself looking at a new guitar or microphone or amp, a voice in the back of my head is always saying something like, "Pssst... you know you could get the Robie House, Pet Shop, and a few minifigures for that price, right?"