Architecture

Las Vegas

The Strip in miniature, black pyramid and all, with one quiet backstory most people never notice.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 21047 · 2018

Pieces501

Minifigsn/a

Year2018

Set number21047

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The verdict

This is one of the more characterful entries in the Skyline series, mostly because Vegas gives LEGO so much to play with: a black pyramid, a Sphinx, a glowing sign, six landmarks that look nothing alike.

I got a real kick out of how different every building feels to put together. It is not the deepest build in the range, and the out-of-order Strip will nag anyone who knows the real thing, but as a finished shelf piece it earns its spot. Best suited to Vegas lovers and Architecture completists who want a display, not a puzzle.

Best for: Vegas lovers and Architecture Skyline collectors who want a display piece

The full review

What it is

The Luxor is what got me first. A little black pyramid with a tiny Sphinx sitting in front, built out of angled roof pieces, and somehow it reads exactly right at micro scale. That is the whole appeal of this set in one building. Las Vegas hands LEGO a skyline full of oddball shapes, a pyramid, a stepped tower, a Y-shaped hotel, a glowing sign, and the designers leaned into every one of them. You get the Las Vegas sign, the Bellagio, the Luxor, the Encore at the Wynn, the Stratosphere and the Fremont Street Experience, all lined up on a single dark base with a printed nameplate. Setting up the finished row and recognising each one without needing a label is a genuinely happy little moment.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because there are a few. This is a Skyline set, which means it is a display object first and a building experience second. At 501 pieces you are done in an evening, and some of that time is repetition on the base and the taller towers. The bigger gripe, and it comes up in nearly every review, is that the buildings are out of order compared to the actual Strip, with the Bellagio sitting in a spot it never occupies in real Vegas. If you know the city that will quietly bug you every time you walk past the shelf. And the Bellagio itself, clever as its angled front is, leaves a messy back full of exposed clips and bars that you just have to not look at.

Who it's for

So who should get this. If you love Vegas, if you have stood under that sign, or if you are working through the Architecture Skyline series and want the row to be complete, this is an easy yes and the secondary-market price only makes an unopened one more tempting. It also makes a smart desk piece for anyone who wants a conversation starter rather than a weekend project. If you build for the engineering, though, for the clever internal tricks and the long satisfying grind, this will feel slight, and you would be happier with one of the larger Architecture landmark sets. Know which kind of builder you are before you buy and you will not be disappointed.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a tour of six small, self-contained techniques rather than one long method, and that variety is the fun of it. Each landmark is its own little bag of tricks: the Stratosphere gets elegant curved legs holding up its pod, the Encore at the Wynn carries a subtle bend across its face, and the Bellagio is the showpiece, a Y-shaped tower with two front walls angled outward and pinned in place by bars mounted on the reverse. That last one is proper Studs-Not-On-Top work, plate stacking on the front and Technic blades holding the geometry from behind, and it is easily the most interesting thing in the box to assemble even if the back is a bit of a mess.

There is no minifigure here, this is pure micro-scale architecture, so the joy is in the small printed and repurposed pieces. The printed Las Vegas sign tile is the signature part and does a lot of heavy lifting for the whole display. The Luxor uses a stack of black slope and roof elements to nail that pyramid angle, and the Sphinx cleverly reuses the Egyptian pharaoh headdress element in a fresh sand-coloured look. At 501 pieces for around 39.99 dollars at release, roughly eight cents a part, the value was always fair rather than remarkable, but the mix of angles, curves and that one perfect printed tile is what you are really paying for.

Fun facts

01This set exists because the original 21038 Las Vegas was cancelled at the last minute after the October 2017 Mandalay Bay tragedy. LEGO pulled it, swapped the Mandalay Bay for the Bellagio, and re-released it as 21047.
02That quick swap is why the buildings sit out of order on the base, the Bellagio was dropped into the layout without reshuffling the rest of the Strip.
03The little Sphinx in front of the Luxor reuses the LEGO Egyptian pharaoh headdress piece, given a new sand-coloured treatment for this set.
04Released at 39.99 dollars in September 2018 and retired in December 2020, sealed copies have since climbed to well over 100 dollars on the secondary market.