[MOC]Haroué Castle (Architecture)

[DanSto]

For the summer L13 contest of the Brickpirate forum into the Architecture section, I choose to reproduce a castle built into the XVIII century : the Haroué Castle situed into Lorraine, France.

The real castle

The Haroué castle or Haroué Palace is situed into the centre of the Haroué village, south of Nancy.

It has been built from 1720 to 1729 on a ancient castle preseving its 4 main towers and the moats.

The castle presents interesting characteristics relatied to a year :

- 365 windows,

- 52 chimneys,

- 12 towers (some are included into the building),

- 4 bridges over the moats.

Today, it is still occupied by the descendants of prince Marc de Beauvau-Craon who was the initial owner.

Source Wikipedia (french).

More information and nice pictures can be obtained on its website.

Some pictures taken from the sky :

The main structure is easier to get when the trees are without their limbs :

Starting the Architecture version

As an introduction, I would only cite Adam Reed Tucker who designed many officiel Architecture sets :

The challenge may not seem so obvious: straightforward design and basic LEGO elements, what else could you ask for?

However, there are two not so obvious challenges even with a seemingly easy build, namely those of scale and proportion.

The aim is then to get the good scale which allows to respect the proportions of a building using LEGO parts and to try to include characteristics details in such a way that the building is immediately identifiable to the people who know it.

For tis castle, the starting point are the towers at the corners because, at this scale, it is not possible to use other parts that 2x2 round bricks with a cone on top. This fixes the scale of the MOC as illustrated by this drawing where 2 cm corresponds rougly to 2 studs :

At this scale, from the 4 mains characteristics points given above, the chimneys have been sacrified (most of such castle have chimneys), only the 6 outside towers are kept in order to preserve the U form of the castle, the nulber of windows has been reduced but the 4 bridges are present. Finally, as a main decorative element, the huge trees of the forward court allowing to date the representation at the end of spring after rain.

MLCAD virtual model.

Virtual modelling is well adapted for Architecture MOCs because it alloxs to have a good idea of the final rendering, to have an accurate parts list and to show the buildings steps into a small movie.

The real model.

It follows accurately the virtual one : I have only modified the portal and added tiles for the description stickers (the writing have been added using photoshop).

The pictures below describe the MOC better than my words.

More pictures are available by clicking on the small ones :

To end, the Architecture like box of this MOC.

I hope you will enjoy this french caslte's MOC.

[Rick]

Thanks for sharing. I'll move this to Special Themes, where MOCs based on LEGO's Architecture series are posted.

[kermit]

Im surprised lego hasnt done this set before. Great work.

[eurotrash]

This is excellent - you've definitely captured the essence of the original.

[jimmynick]

Great job, DanSto. I love your solution for the gate at the entrance.

[FuzzyBallz]

Oh look, only 20000 pieces!

[DanSto]

Thanks for sharing. I'll move this to Special Themes, where MOCs based on LEGO's Architecture series are posted.

Thanks Rick : you are right, it is more suited here.

Oh look, only 20000 pieces!

No , 20000 is the virtual (not used ly lego) reference of this "box". The MOC uses something like 750 parts.

[Kristel]

You've really captured the essence of the actual building. Well done!

[Sarles]

Great job! Thank you for showing your work process as well. The presentation is first rate.

[Redhead1982]

Great work. It's hard and tricky sometimes to get the right size and proportions, and a choice of model to minimize is important as well. However, your MOC has it all. It's a simplified version of large castle with all the significant details - the towers, trees, bridges. Well done!

[TheLegoDr]

A job well done. You captured the original at a good scale. The trees work really well. I like the trees a lot!

Keep up the good work!