Wow. I mean, seriously, WOW. That’s about the best way to sum up Lego House in Billund. As this is a blog about the place though, I assume you’d like a bit more detail, so I’ll do my best to give this attraction the plaudits it deserves…
First off, to set the scene; I’ll not give you a history of Lego, which goes back to the 1950’s, but only an overview of Lego House itself, which was opened in 2017. As a result, it still looks brand-spanking new, nice and sparkly white from the outside, and very modern and clean on the inside.
The building resembles 21 Lego Bricks stacked on each other. On the rooftops are play areas for kids, which are accessible to the public. Inside the house, you’ll find six zones, two of which are exhibitions, with four being interactive play areas.
Upon entering the ticketed area, your first action is to walk up and around the Tree of Creativity, a 15-foot tall monster of a display, with each level of branches housing a different Lego-themed set. Not a bad start…
The first exhibition area is the Masterpiece Gallery, with an awesome main display of 3 terrifying dinosaurs; What makes this display even more special, besides the 5 1/2 tonnes of Lego used to make them, is the fact that all 3 Lego systems were used to build them – one is made of Duplo, one of Lego, and one of Technic. Besides the dinosaurs, there are several other displays of insanely detailed sets built by Master builders.
The second exhibition area is just down past the Masterpiece Gallery, and houses 3 mammoth displays, each with its own theme. You have the Lego City themed display, featuring its skyscrapers, train station, and harbor. The Island hosts an amusement park and beachfront, and the Mountain set has a large railway, impressive forest covering, and a winter village. All of these displays are wired with lighting and moving elements, making them even more impressive!
Once you’ve finished ogling the displays, why not move on to the actual experience zones? Here, you’ll find Lego everywhere, and best of all, you’ll be able to play with it. All of it. All of the Lego. And trust me, there’s a LOT of Lego!!
Start off in the Red Zone, featuring a massive waterfall and 4 different Lego pits (including a Duplo one large enough for kids to swim in). Build anything you can imagine!
The other 3 zones focus more on a particular theme, these being:
Yellow Zone – Design your own 2D fish, give it a bit of character, and then let it loose in the aquarium. No, really. Once you’ve built your fish, you scan it, add some eye/mouth elements, and then it actually swims around in the electronic aquarium for an hour or so. You can also build flowers and insects in this zone.
Blue Zone – This one was great fun – control your own super advanced robot truck as you trundle over the frozen wastes of the Arctic freeing a research team stuck in the ice. Using the straightforward Lego Boost control system, even Sofia managed to successfully achieve a few rescues! Other options include building and testing your own race car, or creating microenvironments and placing them on a large-scale city platform.
Green Zone – Here, take 10 minutes to create your own Lego movie. Directors are provided with a scene and characters, and by simply moving the characters a step at a time, and taking multiple pictures, you can create your own stop-animation short film. There’s also a minifigure building section.
The History Section downstairs is a must for any Lego aficionado – showing products created through the ages by Lego, starting at the days when they were wooden toy manufacturers, and displaying most of their iconic sets, including 6980 (the 1983 Space Commander set, which i still have!) It’s a wonderful walk down memory lane for those of us who are still children at heart, but slightly over the hill otherwise.
Within the building, but outside of the paid areas, is the Lego Shop. Pretty standard fare here, except for the unique sets that you can buy, which are themed on attractions found within Lego House. I bought myself the scaled down dinosaur set – which is a fantastic little build, and looks lovely on display.
There is a Cafe and a Restaurant within the building as well, though both are quite pricey, and you need to book the restaurant in the morning to have any chance of getting in before 3pm. We popped over the road for lunch at a Turkish restaurant that serves decent pizza and kids food.
As a final word, please do go and see this fantastic attraction at least once in your lifetime. It’s so worth it! We spent seven hours here, and if I hadn’t been so pooped by the end of it, could easily have spend a couple more.
I, for one, will be back.
