Set Review ➟ LEGO® Boutique Hotel 10297
Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of the launch of the theme known as Modular Buildings, inaugurated in 2007 with the Café Corner, a corner hotel with a cafeteria on the first floor, LEGO now brings us another hotel, also on a corner, with a particular design, one of the first models in the series to have triangular geometry. This is 10297 Boutique Hotel and it is the 17th set in the series.
Throughout the construction we will see small nods to the previous modulars, a way of paying tribute to these 15 years in which we have seen how the city has grown.When you see the box you can see a building of European architecture of the early twentieth century, with very attractive colors and you can already see the triangular shape that breaks with what LEGO had us used to date for a corner building.
There is a small detail that I did not like. In the front of the box you can say that the building does not appear completely, the small antenna of the dome of the hotel is folded with the top side of the box ... would it have been so hard to make a small reduction so that it appears completely on the front? Call me a fusspot.
MINIFIGURES
The set comes with 7 minifigures: a bellhop, a receptionist, a barista, a tourist, a backpacker, the gallery owner and a businessman.
The bellhop and the receptionist, as hotel employees, wear the typical jacket worn by bellboys in luxury hotels, with a new "Sand Green" print and white gloves. They are accompanied by an original and practical luggage rack in which to leave the luggage of the guests.
The barista is wearing an apron with a funny printed mug, with a label with his name written on it...but you can't read it. He is accompanied by the coffee stand where a coffee machine makes two cups ready to serve. This coffee cart can be the mobile extension of the 10182 Café Corner set as its canopy and yellow cups match those of the original building.
The owner of the gallery is wearing a light orange jacket over a light blue shirt and we can see a golden heart-shaped necklace. The big red glasses stand out, which we could already see in the set 60292 Town Center.
The gray-haired tourist carries a large suitcase, an umbrella and her pink sunglasses in combination with her blouse. The backpacker, of course, carries her backpack on her back and carries a camera with her.
The elegant businessman wears a black vest with pockets and blue striped tie over a white collared shirt. He carries a brown briefcase and an elegant bowler hat.
CONSTRUCTION
To continue with our MILS (Modular integrated Landscaping System) city project, the first thing we will do is to create the module on which we will build our set. We begin the assembly by placing the different tiles on the plates to recreate the sidewalk of the street and we start to delimit the space of the hotel reception and the art studio... the triangular geometry of this set begins to emerge.
The interior of the hotel, in the lobby, has an interesting central mosaic based on triangular tiles on the floor. We find a desk with a telephone, the same model as that of the police station 10278 and a guestbook where we supposedly find the names of some of the occupants of other modular buildings.
Behind it we find an interesting shelf full of keys to the different rooms of the hotel. To the right we will see a painting of abstract art made by the artist of the studio that is on the set of the Parisian Restaurant 10243. A large sofa for waiting in the reception area presides over the stairs that will take us to the upstairs rooms. Perhaps an elevator is missing, what luxury hotel doesn't have an elevator?
Next it's the art gallery's turn. Just at the entrance we find a cubist style painting and a curious construction with transparent bricks that represents a cube, ah, wait, it is the old logo of Creator Expert!
In the background we see a small table with a chair and on the walls a couple of paintings. One of them in the purest cubist style....Picasso! And another that could well belong to Piet Mondrian... it is clear that the theme of the exhibition is cubism.
Hidden in an alcove, just below the stairs leading to the hotel cocktail lounge, is a black bust designed by the same builder of the white bust found in the lobby of Town Hall 10224.
Unfortunately, all the details and elements of the art gallery are hidden with the final assembly.
Between the hotel and the art gallery we find the stairs that lead to the cocktail bar that is located right on the roof of the gallery. I love the aesthetics of these stairs, with its irregular shapes, which gives it a very realistic look, along with the detail of a small water fountain in the stairwell.
As we climb the stairs, we come across a bulletin board on the wall that is filled with references to previous modulars: the chef at the Parisian Restaurant, the apple for the Green Grocer, Detective Ace Brickman or the barbershop at the Detective Bureau, the boxing gloves for the Downtown Diner, the painter at the Pet Shop, and Andy Sax, as a reference to the music store in Assembly Square.
At the back of the hotel we discovered a blue garbage container, in which they have thrown a white croissant, do you remember the Parisian Restaurant?
The next step is to build the second floor of the building. The predominant color of this part is "Light Nougat", so there are a lot of new pieces in this color.
On this floor there are two bedrooms. The larger one has a double bed, with its bedside table, a closet, an armchair and a desk where we find a typewriter and an original desk lamp. The second bedroom is smaller. It contains a double bed, a closet and a small desk with an interesting chair whose back is made of "Robot Arms" pieces and has an exit to a small balcony. The facade is lined with white columns and large windows that allow us to see the interior of the rooms.
On the same level is a small terrace and cocktail bar, with a small bar where drinks are served. The entrance is at the top of the stairs and has a forged structure with a decorative arch.
On the terrace we find a palm tree whose trunk I don't really like, and in addition, it takes away a lot of space for the minifigs.
We move on to the second floor. In this section we will see that the predominant color is "Sand Green".
On this floor we will find the large suite of the hotel. The room has a bathroom with a large bathtub with golden faucets and bottles of gel. It has a small sink with a mirror. For this mirror a new piece is used, a "Tile 2 x 3 with Silver Mirror" that brings silk-screened patterns of reflections. We also find the detail of the paper holder with toilet paper.
In the center there is a large double bed, with bedside tables on the sides and small lamps. As a detail, they have left us a chocolate bar on the bed, a detail that certain hotels have with their customers. At the back we have a large closet and an armchair. There is also a TV, the old-fashioned kind, not the flat ones hanging on the walls.
On the facade we also find small white columns, but unlike the second floor, it has small windows to maintain a little more privacy from the large suite.
As a curiosity, we found a small error in the instructions. In one of the steps we find that they make us place a white 1x2 plate that should not appear. Lately I am used to finding small mistakes in the instructions.
Finally, we are left with the construction of the hotel's rooftop. Perhaps the least interesting part to build. To highlight the dome in "Sand Green" color and the forging made with snake pieces. In the center, a large skylight will let light into the interior of the suite.
CONCLUSION
We know that comparisons are odious, but if we compare the first set, the Café Corner, with this last one, we will see a spectacular evolution, both in terms of design and details. The new geometric shape used for this modular is a great success. This will give more realism to the big city. The colors and architectural style look great.
Like the rest of the modulars, the three floors are designed to be detachable so that all the interiors can be seen. The facade is full of details such as the plants, the hanging flags, the wrought iron structure at the entrance to the terrace or the white columns.
It is also interesting to see all the nods that have been made to the rest of the sets in the theme as you build.
The hotel reception has a large space and I miss some more detail, some furniture would have been interesting.
# We wish to thank LEGO for providing this set for review. The opinions in this article are neither approved nor endorsed by LEGO.
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