LEGO New York City – Big Apple’s designer went for a ‘sophisticated feel’

The designer of 21066 New York City – The Big Apple has revealed what her creative approach was when it came to the upcoming LEGO Architecture set.

The LEGO Architecture theme will evolve once again this summer, with 21066 New York City – The Big Apple expanding on the visual style of the previously-released 21064 Paris – City of Love. The unique aesthetic of the upcoming build was one of the topics the set’s designer spoke about at last year’s LEGO Fan Media Days event (which you can watch here), with Brick Fanatics in attendance.

“This model is a fresh expression,” elaborated Senior Model Designer Mary Wilson, “and we’ve really embraced the well-known nickname by creating this abstracted composition placed against a big apple containing the night sky.

“With this model we decided to keep it as a very new colour palette for LEGO Architecture, so we’ve stuck with this sort of blueish grey, though I’m sure you can see that there are small pops of yellow. We were able to recolour the LEGO minifigure roller skate to be the small taxis that fill the entire city."

21066 New York City – The Big Apple’s chosen colour scheme allowed such iconic landmarks as the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums in the foreground and the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center in the background to stand out from the more non-descript sand blue and grey buildings to be found in the middle of the set.

“Real-life architecture models are often depicted in white,” said Mary, “and it allows it to show the detail and with this composition we played around so much with colours, but this made what we wanted to stand out stand out.

“We wanted it to be a very limited colour palette. We initially were trying it just with white, black and two grey colours, but it didn’t give a lot of option for depth, so we introduced sand blue and grey.

“This gradient of blue grey buildings are mostly to populate the city to give it that busy and bustling feel that we know New York has without being specific buildings. Colour exploration was huge, but wanted to almost have a sophisticated feel and then merge that with the playful LEGO style that we can do."

21066 New York City – The Big Apple will be released on June 1, 2026, priced at £129.99 / $139.99 / €139.99, with the LEGO Architecture set available for pre-order right now.

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