alois

You are digging up a very old topic. And even in the lovely dutch language, which I happen to speak. Coincidently one I opened myself almost ten years ago. To answer your question: helaas pindakaas.... laat je eigen creativiteit werken!

To answer the original question: No, I don't only buy Lego, but sometimes it is given to me, by friends and family, and even by TLG.

Really good facades! They capture the atmosphere of a tiny part of London very well.

Almost every year I try to exhibit my Lego city at LEGO World in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Every year I replace a few buildings, and every year I arrange them in a different layout. The idea was to build a large layout for LEGO World 2020 together with a number of train builders, of which my city, with a station, would be a part. We know how that ended... We made a new plan for 2021, and again for 2022. Even in 2022, LEGO world was canceled again. The 2023 edition finally took place after four years, but the other participants in the layout preferred to organize their own, private event rather than participate in LEGO World. So I was on my own. I decided that a train had to run after all, so there had to be a loop around the back of my layout. My oldest train, the NS Mat'34 diesel-electric train set, was upgraded and ended up running 90% of the time, because the other trains had many more problems. In the city, the two largest buildings are the station, built in 2021, and the collegiate church of Saint Leonore, built in 2020 (for the LEGO World, which was canceled). I tried to make it more lively with all the minifigs, with little scenes and stories everywhere. Here is a video of the complete layout, and for more photos you can check out my Flickr.

When I was eight years old I needn't have my collection sorted. He does because of the too large variety of bricks he's got. Which I didn't give him, but his uncle, grandparents, friends and so on. All where sets for his age category resulting in too many different bricks. Which are used by set designers because they can. I'm glad I've been able to give you are a true unpopular opinion.

I'm currently helping my eight year old son sorting out his Lego. It's way too large a task for him, which brings me to thinking that Lego has listened too much to afols in the last fifteen years, making too many parts in too many colours. For a boy with a limited collection of Lego the possibilities for play are seriously limited, now that he's old enough not wanting to build Rainbow Warriors anymore. When I was his age, I had bricks mostly in white and red, and yellow, blue and black. I could build a decent house in those colours. With the same quantity of bricks my son can't, because the same bricks now have thirty different colours. Same goes for parts variety. It's no wonder therefore that children only build sets nowadays and don't make the step to building their own creations. It's become too complicated for them.

Four years after the last edition in 2019 finally the 20th edition of Legoworld Utrecht will be held, october 18-24 2023 in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht (Netherlands). Anyone going? I will be there the whole week showing my Lego town.

I hope it's your latest MOC, not your last because I like where you are going with your building style. One question: snotting the brick bricks, doesn't that defy their purpose?

Fantastic build! I've already seen parts of it in real life, and hope to see the whole one time. I like the 'impressionist' way of building with lots of different textures and angles.

Yes I have. And I remember the time when bags never were numbered. You had a set like 10214 Tower Bridge, 4000+ parts, without any numbering on the bags. You first had to open all the bags and sort the parts to be able to build the set. So things are easy nowadays, grandpa says.

Nevertheless, it's not a bad thing to be reminded once in a while that it's a bizarre thing to speculate with a children's toy instead of playing with it.

I have a 100% MOC Lego town:

That is one smooth hull Jebbo! But it's a crazy thing to build a Lego model that's 1.25 m long...

I like your cathedral. It is instantly recognisable as Aachen cathedral, which is quite an accomplishment in microscale. I appreciate your idea of using 1x4 bows for making pointed arches.

It's two by five 32x32 baseplates, that's all that I know. I suspect it goes beyond 10,000 pieces, but how much I don't know.

It's not really Amsterdam, have a good look. But Magna Plaza or another post office by CH Peters would be a good idea anyway.

Both of course. I really ran out of tan bricks, and had still a lot of reddish brown and dark orange laying around, but in reality this was also often the case in the Netherlands. Stone is more expensive than brick, because there isn't any in the Netherlands to find. Look at the New Church on the Dam Square in Amsterdam, where you can see the same.

For Legoworld Utrecht 2020, I decided it was time to built a new church for my Lego town. And so did the town dwellers. So I built a new church. Internal history: Building started around 1300, when the preceding church was elevated to the rank of collegiate church, in keeping with the growth and prosperity of the town. Building started with the radiating chapels of the choir: The old church can bee seen in the background by the way. Building contiued with the cleresory of the choir, wihich was more ornated, and which was ready around 1375. Then building slowed down because of economic problems. Around 1450 the transept was finally built: But the economic problems continued and the town was not able to realise the grand nave of the church, and insted opted for a cheaper nave in brick with wooden vaults, thus foregoing the need for flying butresses. The nave was ready in the year 1530. Because all of the troubles of the 16th century, a tower was never built, however a modest spire was put in the middle. In 1580 a small buioding with a porch for the canons was added. A couple of other pictures, including one of the interior: More pictures can be found here.

In 2018 the church was enlarged another time. I extended it with a transept (only on one side) and a clerestory. Here you can see it at Legoworld Utrecht 2018: At the time (october 2020) this church doesn't exist anymore, since it has been replaced by a new church of Saint Leonore. Only the facade of the transept was incorporated in this new church.

I second the comment about the zeppelin....

Here you go.

No need for all those fancy post-1980 Lego colours! Very nice modular.

I like seeing how you've been searching for solutions to the problems that arise when you want to build a church in Lego. I'm currently doing the same and know how hard it is to capture medieval architecture in bricks, much more than classicist architecture.

But in the Netherlands painting your house teal when it's next to a brick coloured house would be illegal.

So Lego has finally gone over to the dark side of 8 wide....