Trevi Fountain

The build has a really satisfying shape to it. You start down low with the pool and the rocky base, then work your way up into the ornate palace facade, and you finish by placing the statues, so it's paced like the fountain itself: water first, gods last. The star technique is the half-stud offset work across the front, mixed with straight grid building at the back, which is what gives that slim facade so much depth and shadow. It's clever without being brutal, and even a less experienced builder can mostly figure out how the detailing works just by looking at the front. Best of all, the instructions sprinkle in little factoids about the real fountain as you go, including the coin-throwing tradition, which keeps things chatty.

On the parts front, the water is the real trick: layered blues and trans-clear elements create a gradient that genuinely reads as tumbling water. The most notable pieces are the newly recolored half-cylinder and half-dome panels that shape the architecture, plus white horse-head elements pulling double duty as the fountain's sea-horse sculptures (that same head showed up printed as the hobby horse in Minifigures series 23). There's a frog element and even a minifigure trophy piece standing in for figures in the relief. And here's a first for the theme: three full minifigures play the central statues, Oceanus flanked by Abundance and Health, so this is the Architecture line finally letting little plastic people onto the stage. Just don't come for the new-mould count, because there's only one and it's a hand-me-down.