As you enter into the LEGO® House, your first stop is the LEGO® Square. This area is free to enter into and there are a number of things going on. I entered by the door that is right by the LEGO® Brand Store there. In front of the store is a display where you put your hand down on a sensor and it tells you what minifigure you are like. In reality, it just randomly generates a minifigure picture as my 5-year old tried it multiple times and was always something different.
One of the first things you see is a directional sign telling you where everything is in the square. The signs look like large brick tiles. At the bottom of the sign, a brick-built dog does its business.
Right by the information desk is a brick model of the LEGO® House itself. It is pretty detailed and while I didn’t get to read everything on it as I had 2 kiddos who wanted to see everything, it does look like it is to scale.
At the far end from the LEGO® Brand Store is a mosaic on the wall. I assume this is the Christiansen line of company leaders. If you look at it from the other angle it says in Danish “DET BEDSTE ER IKKE FOR GODT” or “only the best is the best” in English. “The best is never too good” is apparently the direct translation.
This mosaic is by some tables which are set up for people to eat at. While I have been to many places in the US where bringing your own food is not acceptable (they want you to buy food there), Denmark as a whole was very accepting of bringing your own lunch. My family visited the LEGO® House 2 days in a row. On the first day, we hit the Mini Chef restaurant because… well we had to. I’ll review that experience later, but let’s just say it is a bit pricey. So for day 2 we stopped at a grocery store near by, grabbed some makings for sandwiches and had much cheaper sandwiches by the mosaic for lunch. It worked out a lot better for our wallets and you could still watch everything nearby.
How did they make the mosaic that has 2 images? If you look up close, you can see it is all made of 1x1 cheese slopes. There is no sign nearby that says how many they used, but it is definitely cool how they did it. Makes me want to try it, but probably on a smaller scale.
Near the mosaic is a koi pond made from bricks. I didn’t get a picture of it, but above the pond are real plants that hang down and on those plants are brick butterflies. The Square as a whole had a lot of real plants with various brick built plants and animals mixed in.
The full scale Bugatti Chiron will be at the LEGO® House in the Square through 10 June 2019 (so not much longer). It was pretty cool to see. While you can’t get up close to touch it, you still get a pretty good view.
You can see my set review of #42083-1 here and some pictures of an actual car and the factory I saw in France here.
The display had a touch screen attached where you could control the functions of the car to include all of the lights and then a sound system that made it sound like the car was really powering up its engine. Lots of onlookers took pictures of it and it always seemed to be a popular place to hang out.
Nearby the car were some smaller cases. I took 2 pictures. The first is of the engine parts that they built to actually power the car. The second is of the Technic parts they used to built it and a few of the assembled patterns. They also had a case with the side mirror design inside and then a case with a lot of #42083-1 wheels. The wheel case was a contest where if you guessed the right number of wheels, you could win a #42083-1 set for free. My NLS, my 5-year old, and I all guessed. We’ll see if any of us were close.
Overall, the LEGO® Square is a great welcoming space. There are still a number of things to do and its a great place to hang out. My NLS pointed out that if she worked in the area in Billund, it would be a great place to bring a lunch and hang out to get away from work.
As a Dad with little kids, the plight of bathrooms is real. Are they clean? And in Europe especially, is there one I can use? The LEGO® House bathrooms all seemed pretty clean to me. There were a number throughout the building to include in the Square area. The ones in the Square were the biggest with stations to change diapers, stalls with kid sized toilets, and a line of sinks at a little kid level. Gold star to the LEGO® House for realizing kids would be there and you need good bathrooms for those kids.
Right by the bathrooms are a bunch of lockers. The lockers are free to use if you purchased a ticket. You swipe your entrance wrist band by the locker and it locks it. When you want to open it, just swipe your wrist band again. We put our lunch cooler in there and a few coats which worked out great.
You can buy your tickets to the Experience Zones at the information desk in the Square or you can save money and buy them online ahead of time. If you buy online, you can print or use your phone to scan a code at a machine in the Square. It will disperse your entrance wrist band right there. If you have trouble, there were a number of employees in the vicinity who were very helpful. On the first day, an employee saw us fighting with the sticky part and he came over and helped to install the bands on us and our kids.
Overall, the employees there were great. They were very helpful, gave tips to my 5-year old on some of the building challenges, and were very friendly. On the first day, there was one who had one of the Technic cars that has a pull back function. It seemed like every time we walked through the square, he launched it to my kids. On the first day at the end of our visit, my kids were overtired and didn’t want to leave so it was a little rough trying to get them out the door. Then from about 50 feet away, the Technic car goes right by my 5-year old and both kids stopped being upset and wanted to play again. Just enough distraction to get us out the door (Thank you!).
Not sure if I got any pictures of them, but in the Square, they also had some of the larger rubberized bricks to play with. My almost 2-year old enjoys those and it worked out good. My 5-year old wanted to make some custom minifigures to buy in the Brand Store so while that happened, my almost 2-year old and I built with the large bricks.
In the Square there are also some brick built sculptures of the LEGO® family. I failed to get a picture of them, but I believe my NLS has one. I will add it to the post later.
Finally, the Square is your entry point into the Experience Zones and you can see the bottom of the Tree of Creativity from the Square. We’ll get into the Experience Zones next.
Happy building!