LEGO Buildings and Lions - Escape Home to NYC, Part 2, Day 4

Magnet #1185 - LEGO

While I love LEGOs, I'm not like the hugest LEGO fan out there. I didn't really grow up putting them together, and played with them only once in a blue moon. In fact, I think that's why I have so much more fun with them now as an adult.

I inherited a LEGOs set at my old office, so when the kids come in, they'd playdate with me on my cube floor, and we'd build fun stuff. The box wasn't a full-on set, just randoms, so we'd really have to get creative with what we built.

Lemme tell you, if you think advertising creative folks are hard to get along with? Try getting in the way of a 4-year-old's LEGOvision.

If you've read anything from this blog, you know that I'm a big architecture buff, so of course, I'm loving all the architectural sets LEGO's released over the last couple of years. Naturally, my two fave sets are Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim and Fallingwater. I had so much fun putting them together - even as friends and family sat and wondered how old I was. Still. C'mon. They're superduper cool!

My other LEGO fave is the touring Towering Ambition architecture tour that we saw in Chicago. It's currently at the National Building Museum in DC, so if you get a chance to go, you must. It's a cityscape of tall and taller famous buildings from all around the world, all made of LEGO blocks. Freakin' fantastic. And don't even get me started on LEGOLand - I just walk around for ages looking at all of their outdoor diorama displays!

It's been a LEGO-filled weekend, too. Today, I finally braved the Rock Center crowds again to visit the store - they have a new tiny Andy Warhol display, which is superdupercute.

And this weekend, I basically hung out at the New York Public Library for their Centennial Celebration. They commissioned a LEGO artist to put together half-sized Patience and Fortitude, the library lions. Even with 60,000 pieces, they were a tad bit on the small side, but still, damned cool.

I just love my shot below of the awesome Library Lion, reading @MichelleKnudsen's Library Lion, flanked by the LEGO Library Lions. So funny.

It's like the Best. Shot. Ever.

"Note: We are now in the domain of virtuosity, romance & symbolism."*

Magnet #526 - Frank Lloyd Wright's Saguaro Forms and Cactus Flowers

Picked this one up at BEA, again from the Pomegranate folks, and using this one for today, since we had a pretty good Frank Lloyd Wright day in Oak Park.

We spent the morning at the new Modern Wing, and then we booked it through an hour traffic to finally arrive at FLW's house and studio by 3:35pm...only to make our way toward the back of the gift shop to see the sign above their heads say, "Next Tour: Tomorrow" and hear the cashier explain to several people that they were sorry, but there were no more spots available.

You have to hand it to the guy - he was incredibly patient with the huffy visitors there - to the folks ahead of me, and to at least half a dozen more people asking for the tour while I was browsing the gift shop. I mean, telling people who traveled from states and countries all over that they couldn't see the one thing they had come for can't be an easy thing.

So, we didn't get to take the tour. And that's fine, that'll give me something to look forward to on my next trip out.

I did get to visit the little shop - though it was supertiny, they did carry the Gug and Fallingwater lego sets. And, shocker! I did walk out without them. The Gug is priced out at something like $45 - which would normally be ok for something like that, but the darn thing is seriously not taller than my hand! Crazy. And, the Fallingwater is also pretty cool, but priced at $100 and not all that much bigger than the Gug, I just couldn't justify the cost.

In the end, I picked up even more Pomegranate magnets, and an Oak Park area map that plotted the houses of FLW and his ilk, plus other important houses, and created our own drive-by tour.

*A handwritten note from a Louis H. Sullivan ornamental drawing, which really has nothing to do with this FLW magnet, or day, other than I just liked the lyricism and thought behind the turn of phrase.

Chasing waterfalls

Magnet #18 - Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

So, apparently, I have a favorite everything - Frank Lloyd Wright's my favorite architect. Oh, I could never really live in an FLW house (I mean, who can, really), but I find that there's always something supremely interesting about his work.

And Fallingwater reigns as one of his most famous. This was my first introduction to FLW (if you don't count Timothy Dalton's Hollywood estate in The Rocketeer, which wasn't a bonafide FLW house, but definitely influenced by him), and ever since, I love fitting in any and all FLW houses along the way. To anywhere.

I have to say, though, that the more of his structures I see, the more I've begun to wonder about the practicality of his design. I'm always reading or hearing about the conservation of his works. One could argue that some of them are getting on in years, but it does sort of feel like his work wasn't meant for the long haul. A bit of fleeting greatness, methinks.

This magnet might possibly be in my top 10 favorite magnets. I have several in the metals section - they're more expensive, magnet-wise, but the detail on them can be pretty amazing. Also, they can supertotally double as weapons!!