Being an AFOL who came out of his dark ages
at about the time when Lego was regaining its footing in the old industry was
perhaps one of the fortunate things that have happened to me. Shortly off the
purchase of a used Lego train set in a hardware store, I started browsing the
Lego website to find out more about what other products they offered at that
time. It was then the Café Corner caught my eye, and as taken off the website, its description read:
“Developed by LEGO fans and designers working together, this detailed
and realistic street corner scene features plenty of special colors, rare LEGO
pieces and creative building techniques, as well as authentic interior details
and modular construction to let you enlarge the neighborhood as your LEGO
collection grows. Built completely on minifigure scale! Includes 3 townspeople
minifigures! Street base measures 10" x 10" (25.4 cm x 25.4 cm) and
building stands over 14" (36 cm) high! Realistic features include opening
front door, Café tables with umbrellas, striped awning, "Hotel" sign,
trash can, street light, bench and more! Top two stories lift off to reveal
inner rooms and staircases! Connectors at base of model allow you to join 4
Café Corners together!”
The first impression café corner had on me
was a totally different, sophisticated product, targeted at an older audience.
Even the original retail price of USD140 was one that priced itself out of many
casual or younger fans. Given that the market for Lego in Singapore is not as
big as that in US or Europe, our toy stores never brought in to sell it. I was
fortunate enough to have a friend buy it from me on Amazon for a reasonable
price, and owning the first new Lego set after so many years was the reboot of
a serious hobby.
A
little more background, Café Corner was designed by Jamie Berard, who has gone
on to produce many of the Lego exclusives sets, and he has also worked on more
than half of the modular buildings that Lego has released. It is fair to say
that his designs have sparked off a huge deal of interest in reborn AFOLs and
generally just anyone who is attracted to architecture translated into Lego
form. As a first of its kind Lego set, Café Corner was a corner building,
meaning you could buy 4 to form a huge building 4 times the size, and looking
back, I think this was the start of Lego’s marketing ploy to give fans a good reason to buy multiple copies of the same set.
As a nod to the classic minifigure that has come to be the mascot of Lego, all modulars have included them in different roles. In this first modular, the 3 of them are just known as townspeople. Granted, one doesn't buy the modular for the sake of collecting minifigures (unlike themes like Star Wars, Superheroes or Harry Potter), and the focus is really more of the build.
It's not easy to pin-point exactly what it is about the set that attracted me, but as the pictures will show, there has been an incredible amount of detail that goes into it, from the brick-built hotel sign (which will eventually be carried over in many of the subsequent sets), the subtle bench and lamppost, to the very pleasing colour combination of dark blue, yellow, tan and dark red, it is not exaggerating to say that the building is an art-piece on its own.
There are also very clever applications of certain parts which we normally would not associate them with, such as using the ski pieces here to form a fence on top of the main door.
One of the initial criticisms of the modular line was also the lack of interiors, which is evident here. Lego took this feedback seriously, and it would be in the next modular which we see furnished interiors.
The décor in the upper floors.
While it might be sparse on the inside, it more than compensates for the details on the exterior. The watch tower, as well as the surrounding dark red walls are my favourite parts of the build. The use of the grey parrot and frog parts as ornaments are also extremely clever and apt.
