Review: 21052 Dubai
Posted by Huw,
Skylines started out as a sideline to the main Architecture sets in 2016 but now seem to be an integral part of the theme, perhaps even supplanting models of single buildings given that there are none being released in 1HY 2020.
The 12th and 13th models in the series are 21051 Tokyo (547 pieces, £59.99/$59.99) and 21052 Dubai (740, same price) which will be available in January. In this review I take a look at the model of the city in the United Arab Emirates.
Normally, when reviewing Skyline sets, I take photos as I progress through the build, but this time I'll take a look at the buildings in turn after I've finished building it, because they are all constructed separately and can be attached and detached from the base easily.
The base
As usual the base is constructed first. It's mostly covered with tan tiles, which is of course appropriate given the city is in the desert.
The relatively new 'PLANT, W/ 3.2 SHAFT, 1.5 HOLE, NO. 1' has been cast in olive green for the first time for this set and is used to good effect for palm trees.
All four of the main structures are attached with Technic pieces or with just a few studs.
Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel
The first building to be constructed is the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, which is actually a pair of similar-looking towers, one taller than the other.
The towers are built sideways, with 45 degree slopes on one side and dark blue inverted tiles on the other.
The towers use the new 1x1 semi-circle brick, drum lacquered gold for the first time, for the gold windows at the top of the building.
When they are attached to the base, their bases tesselate to form, what I presume is the ground floor of the complex.
Dubai Frame
This is perhaps the most disappointing structure in the set because, while it's recognisable for what it's supposed to be, the proportions are all incorrect: it should be wider and of uniform thickness.
The drum lacquered doorframe may well prove useful, though.
Dubai Fountain
The fountain sits at the foot of the Burj Khalifa in real life and on this model.
Burj Khalifa
At 829m, this iconic skyscraper is the tallest structure in the world. LEGO has produced two versions of it previously, the very basic 21008 in 2011 and the more impressive 21031 in 2016.
This new one is built to a different scale to the others and uses a completely different building technique, although it's actually not much smaller than 21031: 31cm vs 39cm.
The build is a bit tedious, to be honest, involving stacking alternate layers of grey and trans blue plates, but the end result is effective.
As the building gets narrower towards the top there are a few unsightly gaps between the stacks of plates, although they are not noticeable from the front.
The three lower sections of the tower are held together with a couple of '3 branch cross axles'. The axle sticking out the bottom anchors it to the base.
Burj Al Arab
In my opinion this building is the most iconic and attractive in the city. It's surprising, then, that it hasn't been the subject of an Architecture model before now. Its overall shape and graceful curves are not easy to replicate in LEGO, so I suspect that may be the reason.
Nevertheless, I think the designers have done a pretty good job of this small-scale model. The core of the building is formed from alternating sand blue and dark blue wedge plates to represent the glass sections, with 318 bars sticking out where needed to connect the trusses.
I'm not entirely convinced by the parts used for the white section of the building that runs down the centre of the curved face, though. Surely longer curved slopes would have worked better?
The candlestick seems to be flavour of the month among designers at the moment. It was used prominently in 10270 Bookshop and here it's used to form both the vertical support pillars, the horizontal trusses, and the diagonal cross-braces as well. A thinner piece would have ideally been used for the latter, a length 2 318 bar perhaps, but that doesn't exist.
It's a bit of a task getting them all lined up properly and I've done a better job at it in these photos than in the ones below of it on the base, taken a few days ago.
The tower sits on a triangular island which is connected to the mainland by a bridge.
The completed model
As you'd expect the Burj Khalifa dominates the skyline just as it does in Dubai.
Verdict
It's an interesting model, and also interesting to build on account of each structure being constructed using a different technique.
All four buildings capture the essence of the real ones, if not all entirely accurately, and are instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with the city.
It's not my favourite Skyline by any means but I do like it, and I'm sure anyone who's visited the city or is collecting them will too.
Thanks to LEGO for providing the set for this review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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35 comments on this article
Maybe this means the upcoming Huracan will have this kind of gold.
Never been and know nothing about the place but looks like they've captured it pretty well.
Must, and I mean MUST get the Dubai set. Great detail and they have really done justice for the Burj Khalifa
As pointed out by Huw, scale is an issue, especially with the Picture Frame building. I feel it's biggest issue though is lack of contrasting smaller structures, surely they could have added something in around or even in front that was small enough to not detract from the large buildings but big enough to give some texture to the ground levels. The fountain and the palm trees are so lost in the last picture you wouldn't notice them unless you where looking closely for them! Last years Paris made good use of scale depth with the large black office building in the back and smaller Champs-Élysées in the foreground for example. It's Architecture set, so will still get it anyway lol, plus the buildings individually do look good! :)
Burj Khalifa looks bad IMO.
I like a lot the Architecture theme and especially the Skylines line, but I'll be only truly happy when LEGO discover the existence of South America and Africa.
That burj khalifa looks like something straight out of coruscant
I really like the Skyline series a lot - it's creative, charming and classy all at the same time. And it's great to collect, as it could feasibly continue for many years. I'd love to see skyline entries for Rio, Toronto, Moscow, Los Angeles, and my own city of Detroit.
I can understand the difficulties in reproducing these building. Not my fav by a long way, when you compare to shanghai, it looks very weak. the gold door frame looks wrong and detracts from the overall look. Price point seems a bit high to me
I can see myself purchasing this, building it once, and disassembling it for the parts, as I’ve done with literally every skyline set I’d purchased.
I like skylines a lot and I made also a lot of them based on movies and tv.
Check the info and the instructions here
https://rebrickable.com/users/MOMAtteo79/mocs/
Worst skyline set thus far. Not only is the city itself architecturally undeserving, but the model itself is really lackluster as well. It's almost as if the designer him/herself were as uninspired designing it as the source is.
@lynels said:
"I like a lot the Architecture theme and especially the Skylines line, but I'll be only truly happy when LEGO discover the existence of South America and Africa."
What's a city skyline you'd recommend from those areas?
Ugly renditions of the buildings and a very boring skyline. When compared with the interest and detail in the Tokyo skyline - which uses far fewer pieces - you have to wonder how they got this one so wrong. It just looks ... rushed. And the door frame is insultingly bad and lazy. The very least they could have done is print it to try to show some of the colour and texture on the original structure.
The Museum of the Future should have been included. While it opens in 2020, it’s already physically in front of the Emirates Towers and it’s an architectural and engineering wonder.
@fakespacesquid
São Paulo, Cairo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Santiago...
I say, I love the concept of the series, I don't think it should be limited only to the "five star"cities. Having a good design may be enough to attract people to buy the sets, especially if you're interested in architecture and/or travel, for example.
The door-frame building is hilarious xD.
Sad to say, but even though I'm an Architecture theme collector and enthusiast, this set just doesn't click for me.
And - since we're at it - I'll keep throwing in Rome as a candidate for a skyline set. Yes, I know: TLG's policy of not reproducing religious symbols makes it very difficult for Rome to ever be considered; without St. Peter's basilica, though, Rome's skyline would be totally unpresentable. So, we'll probably never see a Lego skyline set of one of the most architecturally significant cities in the entire world. But we got Las Vegas. All this said with total deference and due respect for Las Vegas and its inhabitants.
I don’t hate it it as much as some, but yeah, it’s not great.
@Block_n_Roll I wouldn't call the doorframe lazy, especially considering it's in a new, desirable color. Seems more like they were trying to have ingenious parts usage and it didn't work out.
Having not looked at this set before, scrolling down to the door frame right after a shot of the real structure gave me a real solid laugh!
This set just look lazy. ...And the likenesses are way off. Burj doesn’t look like that mess.
@dingbat591 I knew that was LEGO’s policy, but it somehow hadn’t occurred to me that it would apply to architecture sets. It did strike me as odd that Notre Dame was absent from the Paris set, the year’s unfortunate events notwithstanding. To a lesser degree, I thought the London skyline set would have looked even better with the inclusion of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Shanghai set (which I agree with others here is great, although credit to the city itself for giving the designers a lot to work with) contains several buildings of religious significance, including a temple. It seems like that should allow religious buildings in Skylines sets, unless western landmarks are held to a different standard.
I love the skyline series, and I proudly have them all up to now. But I am really disappointed that LEGO chose Dubai to be included. Far more people have died constructing buildings in Dubai than were killed or wounded in the Las Vegas shootings...
To quote The Guardian: "Dubai's skyscrapers, stained by the blood of migrant workers. Dubai seems to be a place where the worst of western capitalism and Gulf Arab racism meet in a horrible vortex".
Will not be buying this set - even if it leaves a hole in my collection that my OCD will hate me for...
As a collector of the LEGO skylines, i will buy this set. Even when it is not the best of this series ( Venice, Shanghai are my favorites)
But there is - Tokyo. I think that one will be one of the highlights.
@Jacopyright... -_-
A genius city for postmodern architecture, but, as I thought, they've proven too postmodern to render properly. Not to mention it's human rights abuse incarnate.
I really like the new gold--the pearl gold was just awful and a poor substitute for the chromed pieces before it. Nothing will ever beat chromed, but this new technique is far better than the pearl.
@dingbat591 said:
"And - since we're at it - I'll keep throwing in Rome as a candidate for a skyline set. Yes, I know: TLG's policy of not reproducing religious symbols makes it very difficult for Rome to ever be considered; without St. Peter's basilica, though, Rome's skyline would be totally unpresentable.”
At the risk of being a pedant, St Peter’s isn’t in Rome. But I do agree that a combined Rome/Vatican City skyline would be great though unlikely or even impossible for the reason stated.
@Balthazar_Brannigan Good point. The Ninjago theme is made up of quite a few temple sets. To that extent I'm asking myself how temples should be classified. Having seen a few of them in Asia, I have had the clear impression of visiting religious sites.
@Zander It may sound silly, but I never thought about that. From now on, I'll be looking out my window in a totally different way... ^__^
This is just plain ugly imho. I really like the skyline sets in general, but this has got to be the worst yet - by a wide margin. The set doesn't do any of the portrayed buildings justice.
The Burj Al Arab would have needed a solo set at a much larger scale - if at all.
So much more looking forward to the Tokyo set.
@Zander said:
" @dingbat591 said:
"And - since we're at it - I'll keep throwing in Rome as a candidate for a skyline set. Yes, I know: TLG's policy of not reproducing religious symbols makes it very difficult for Rome to ever be considered; without St. Peter's basilica, though, Rome's skyline would be totally unpresentable.”
At the risk of being a pedant, St Peter’s isn’t in Rome. But I do agree that a combined Rome/Vatican City skyline would be great though unlikely or even impossible for the reason stated.
"
Even without the Vatican Rome would be great! You could make a pretty interesting set with Roman ruins alone (such as the Colosseum, Panthenon, Monte Palatino, Roman Forum and Trajan's column). Add to that the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II and the Fontana di trevi and you can have a pretty interesting skyline.
If you look very, very closely at the Burj Khalifa, you can see a tiny Tom Cruise on the side.
@lynels said:
"I like a lot the Architecture theme and especially the Skylines line, but I'll be only truly happy when LEGO discover the existence of South America and Africa."
You just gave me an idea for a Lego Ideas project, thank you :)
Concerning not including churches being religious symbols: Big Ben was included in three sets already (even a large version of its own), and the San Marco Basilica.