I tested for you: LEGO Architecture 21047 Las Vegas

The Architecture line is probably the one that takes itself the most seriously at LEGO. Sober and classy packaging, instruction booklet with black cardboard cover, high retail prices, no kidding. It's LEGO, but we don't play with it and we are therefore entitled to expect the content of the sets to live up to the reputation of the range. There is always something to smile about at the ingenious use of one piece or another, but here it is serious with "... sets that find their place in all interiors ..."

Latest set in this range, the reference 21043 Las Vegas whose previous version never marketed (ref. LEGO 21038) was the subject of a redesign following the massacre of about sixty people by a gunman posted on the floors of the Mandalay Bay hotel in October 2017. It is therefore the Bellagio hotel which replaces the Mandalay Bay on the skyline of the final set 21047 Las Vegas (501 pieces - 44.99 €).

I could do a lot on the different techniques used here to assemble different hotels, but I let the buyers of this box enjoy this little pleasure. After all, they also pay for it.

Las Vegas for many visitors comes down to a few trips back and forth on the strip between crowded sidewalks and endless halls of hotels filled with slot machines and stretches in their eyes from the city entrance sign to Freemont. Street, the border beyond which most guides recommend not to venture (even if historic Vegas has strong arguments to make) under penalty of being slaughtered or kidnapped by horrible bloodthirsty bums.

LEGO therefore limits its interpretation of Las Vegas to the Strip, which will be enough for most fans, even for those who tried to see if Chumlee was in the area and who for the most part came back disappointed with their paid excursion to the boutique seen in the show P.

The originally planned skyline wisely respected the order of the various buildings represented on the Strip, regardless of which side of the avenue they are placed. Starting from the mythical sign placed at the entrance to the city, the Mandalay Bay is effectively placed before the Luxor, which is itself placed before the Encore at Wynn hotel, which in turn precedes the Stratosphere complex with at the end of Freemont Street race.

I know that the majority of the other sets in the range are content to accumulate the different constructions of a particular place without respecting their respective locations, but the effort had nevertheless been made here on the starting set ...

The designer in charge of modifying the set has therefore simply withdrawn the Mandalay Bay to replace it with the Bellagio which should however logically have been placed after the Luxor.

A little lazy, this modification ultimately only amplifies the echo of the event that justifies it, even if LEGO has never officially communicated on the subject. To liven up the Sunday meal, everyone can explain that the substitution of Mandalay Bay for Bellagio was made because of a news item that occurred almost a year before the date of effective marketing of this small set ...

In the end, LEGO could also have left the set as it is and waited a year to put it on sale.

I finally think for myself that Las Vegas really deserved better than this modest skyline. Might as well do things right and provide us with enough to reconstruct a complete Strip with at least twenty iconic hotels in the city ... LEGO does recommend that you bring together several identical sets to get what is starting to look like a mini-wall of China, the same principle applied here would no doubt have found its audience.

Certainly Las Vegas does not conceal an incredible architectural heritage in the noble sense of the term, but the Strip is nonetheless a collection of creations sufficiently original and varied for LEGO to step out of its usual comfort zone. Don't worry, I'm digressing but I'm well aware that choices had to be made anyway to stay in the theme and in the format of the sub-range Skylines.

If you've been on vacation to L'Excalibur, the Venetian, the Circus Circus or the Casears Palace, you won't wipe away a nostalgic tear while contemplating this set carefully placed on the living room dresser. The only point common to all visitors will probably be the Freemont Experience, an obligatory point of passage for a drink under the neon lights and tourists who screech suspended from the zip line that crosses the luminous dome. And possibly the magical spectacle offered by the fountains of Bellagio, vaguely represented here.

Finally, I think that this quickly assembled little set may not deserve all this attention and that it will probably end up on sale in souvenir shops at McCarran Airport ("... I'm coming back from Vegas, hey I brought you something. It was that or a CSI t-shirt ..."), I will end by telling you that I find that the Luxor is still a bit cramped and that it will cost you around forty euros at the end of the month to add this set to your collection.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before August 25 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.