Hello everyone!

Right after buying the Big Ben, my love for landmark buildings grew. I also started liking a lot more the Architecture sets. At the beginning of the summer, I wanted to start a big LEGO project, but I had no idea what to do. I thought about making a Star Wars diorama, or tons of micro ships, but what I really wanted was something to accompany my Big Ben and my Tower Bridge.

I've always thought that the Arc de Triomphe would make the perfect candidate for a Landmark set. It's got plenty of detail, it's got the right size and is just overall beautiful. One evening, I decided to toy around with some hinged parts I had laying around. I thought about making midi-scaled Arc de Triomphe. That's when I built the ceiling of the arch. It was spot on, but it was a bit too big to make something rather medium sized. So, one thing lead to another, I had tons of spare white bricks and grey greebles, I made a few PaB orders, and then I ended up with this:

 

Sorry if the image quality isn't great, I'm not great with cameras and I don't have a particular place to take pictures of MOCs.

My main sources of inspiration for the Arc were a few Architecture sacled MOCs I've seen on LEGO Ideas, and a big Arch built with beige bricks (main inspiration for the tiled walls). Most of the arch was built from scratch. The only special ordered bricks (PaB wall and S@H) were white tiles for the walls, the border of the sculptures (the ones that look like paintings), most of the shields section, the interior side of the walls (the part with the white grilles that make the names), most of the big LBG section right above the main arch, and most 1x1 round flat tiles.

The whole build should be built at nearly the same scale as the Tower Bridge. In fact, it's closer to the Bridge's scale than to Big Ben's.

Statues and more sculptures:

 

 

I actually think I went crazy with the details. Certainly for the statues. I really wanted everything to be there. I wanted every arm, leg, tree and bush to be there.

The Arc de Triomphe was really my first big LEGO project. Beforehand, the biggest thing I had made were a few modular houses the size of the Pet Shop.

This is the best I could do for the inside of the side arches. The four sculptures on the walls are all there, but I only took a picture (or tried) of this one).

Ceiling main interior:

The roof and the shields:

This is the part I'm proudest of. With the shields, the real challenge was to get them all in. There are 11 shields each big side, and 4 (and a window) on each small side. There was actually not mathematical way to get them all in by simply stacking bricks on top of each other and have everything face upwards. So, I built the whole section using SNOT.

 

 

The only thing that's not actually been built yet (because it's too expensive for what it is), is the sculptures surrounding the roof.

And a couple of comparison shots:

 

Alright, that's the Arc de Triomphe.

Amazing job, Terrasher!

The first thing you see are the grey (?) greebles / reliefs / sculptures and those lovely 1x1 bricks with the vertical bars. You also did a great job on the very top of the Arc with studs pointing every direction to fit all those shields on. There's so much to like about it, but the best detail is the engraving represented by the ends of grille tiles. That's not something many people would think to include, probably deciding such subtle details are a lost cause. The care you took to represent different textures inside the ceiling of the arch is impressive as well. So, as I said before, amazing work.

Oh WOW! I expected something much smaller. This looks minifig scale.

This is amazing work. The reliefs are breathtaking. And all those details.  

Having been there months ago, your model brings me memories, and I can see myself in it. I was very impressed by the accuracy, especially how you managed to do the curved part of the interior. Some inscriptions on the arch would look pretty good too, but I can hardly see a way to do that without using custom stickers.

Thanks for sharing!

Superb!

 

Wow this is stunning in every possible way!

Lego architecture usually keeps me unexcited, but this is superb! Really nice! Amazing details, clever use of part. The way how you interpret these reliefs is so smart. Great!

This one is a brilliant model and interpretation of the original landmark. Especially the way you designed the reliefs is real artwork, at least in my opinion - Wow!

this is amazing, are you going to release this instruction? how many bricks needed?

16 hours ago, gg22 said:

this is amazing, are you going to release this instruction? how many bricks needed?

Thanks! I'm glad you like it, but I won't be making instructions for this MOC. I have no idea how many pieces I used, but I'm guessing at least 3000.