Eric Brok’s lovely Dutch row house, 10190 Market Street, occupies an anomalous position relative to the other modular buildings and has, I believe, been consistently underappreciated. It possesses striking character and aesthetics, and its design and production were innovative for their era. The first section of this review describe the set’s inception and reception; for a discussion of the building itself, skip down a section.

Circuitous canonization

After the release of 10182 Café Corner in April 2007, Lego followed up with 10190 Market Street, released in October 2007. There appears to have been a convergence on the idea of modularity from within and without Lego. 10182 was designed by Lego’s Jamie Berard while 10190 was designed by a Dutch AFOL, the late Eric Brok. The boxes and branding of these two early modulars thus differ completely and 10190 came in a blue “Factory” box, which has subsequently been the cause of much controversy.

At the time of the release of 10190, the Factory program allowed individual customers to develop their own sets on Lego Digital Designer and then order the parts directly from Lego, complete with a customized box. 10190 may have been intended as a demonstration of the program, and to my knowledge was the only proper set released under the Factory imprimatur. Its production process, in which Lego designers worked with an AFOL to realize a set for commercial release seems prescient in 2007, and Lego launched the program that would eventually become Ideas the subsequent year, in 2008.

As further modular buildings along the lines of 10182 Café Corner were released in the years following 2007, the status of 10190 occasioned much debate: Had the set constituted part of the “official” line of modular buildings? In 2017, however, 10190 appeared in the collection of modular buildings behind Jamie Berard in the designer video for 10255 Assembly Square, settling the question in favor of including 10190 in the canon of “official” modular buildings.

Sadly, Eric Brok died in his sleep of cancer in early June 2007, shortly after 10190 was announced in May. His premature death gave the release of 10190 a degree of poignancy that October, a sense that still inheres in the building for me. I believe the minifigure who wears glasses and appears on the upper balcony of the building to be a representation of him.

Modularity of design

Ironically given its disputed status, 10190 is the most modular of any of the modular buildings. Indeed, given that the term “modular building” merely denotes buildings with floors that can be lifted off one another, one could describe 10190 as the only truly modular building. A single quote from Eric Brok appears on the back of the box and at the rear of the instructions and suggests this modularity: “I chose a square shape for the floors so the house could be rearranged in many ways.”

The three floors of the house and the roof of the market each rest on a 16x16 base and can be exchanged for one another. The staircase inside the house comes up in the center of each floor, so the floors can be rotated and still permit staircase access. The front balconies on the uppermost level of the house can be removed, and the system of tan Erling bricks on the front of the house allows the white flag and croissant sign to be repositioned on any floor. In contrast with 10182, 10190 rests on two 32x16 baseplates so that its two halves can be exchanged or even separated.

One cannot help but admire Brok’s imaginative system of modularity, but 10190’s ambitions overstepped its capabilities. Each of its modular functions work, but the results are usually aesthetically disappointing or architecturally nonsensical. Rotating the upper floors of the house results in sheer walls facing the street. Moving the dark blue ground floor of the house on top of the market works fairly well, but results in a door opening onto empty space, a lack of staircase access, and a strangely truncated light blue building next door. The house looks best arranged as it is in official images; Brok’s system, although visionary, would seem to require an architectural style more like modernism to succeed aesthetically as well as functionally.

Architecture and aging

I find 10190 to be one of the most characteristic and architecturally pleasing modular buildings. Only a few of the modular buildings evoke a sense of place: Paris in the case of 10182 Café Corner and 10243 Parisian Restaurant, and Amsterdam in the case of 10190. Its details all contribute to the effect: the decreasing size of the windows as the building rises; the 1x1 plates and tiles used as bricks above the second-floor windows; the ratio of the house’s width to height; the stone lion grotesque at the top of the façade; and the stepped, triangular climax of this façade.

The house of 10190 is one of the few modular buildings to look good from the sides and rear. Its sides include textured bricks in light gray to break up otherwise monochromatic walls, and on the back light tan bricks have been used to fill in old window openings. Moreover, the brick-built effect has improved with age. I have had the set assembled and on display continuously since 2007, and all of the light blue bricks, and the dark blue 1x2s and 1x1s, have yellowed with age on the house’s exterior. The 1x4 light blue bricks have yellowed consistently, but the 1x1 and 1x2 light blue bricks now appear in three slightly different hues, creating a gorgeous, subtle effect of variegation and age that suits the style of the house well.

Some reviewers have criticized 10190 for its lack of interior furnishings, an absence it shares with 10182 and to a lesser extent 10185 Green Grocer. Its interior is admittedly less than functional: the modular design and central staircases leave little interior space to be improved, and the door leading to the balcony on the uppermost floor opens directly onto a hole in the floor. I couldn’t care less about these problems.

10190 Market Street offers plentiful detail, architectural distinction, and boldness of design. Had it not been released in a Factory box, or had its innovative modular interchangeability been realized by subsequent sets it might be more widely recognized as the equal of its celebrated older sibling. Five stars.