Looking for the best Lego for adults? Good on you – Danish construction blocks aren’t just for kids, and stacking plastic pieces together to create unique and magnificent things will always be satisfying, regardless of your age. But, in case LEGO Friends and Ninjago don’t quite ‘gel’ with your grown-up décor, we’ve pulled together this list of the sets that’d make a fine addition to any upstanding adult’s home.
LEGO sets for adults come in all shapes and sizes, from mammoth display pieces to classic movie homages – so we’ve gone for a broad spread of set types here. If you prefer to specialise, check out our guides to the best Star Wars Lego sets; the biggest Lego sets ever made; or (if you want to terrify your wallet) our guide to the most expensive Lego sets in 2023. For now, though, let’s get adulting, because…
The best Lego sets for adults in 2023 are:
LEGO Great Pyramid of Giza
LEGO’s Architecture theme has long targeted adult builders, bringing a hugely rewarding combination of creative building techniques, eye-catching minimalist design, and conversation-starting display pieces. The recent LEGO Great Pyramid of Giza set offers one of the most ambitious, detailed LEGO Architecture sets ever available.
Looked at alone, it certainly prevents a brilliant, stylish interpretation of perhaps the most famous pyramid there is. But lift off the outer shell, and you’ll find a detailed interior, with miniature versions of the building systems believed to be used to construct the looming structure.
The real pyramid’s core appeal, perhaps, comes down to two mysteries; what it contains, and how it was built. This LEGO set excels in leaning into both those enchanting notions.
LEGO Optimus Prime
Let’s get straight to it with this one. The LEGO Optimus Prime set – based on the most iconic of Transformers – actually transforms. So you get to build a LEGO set and end up with a robot that can change into a truck. We can’t quite work out if that means this is one toy or three; but it’s certainly a remarkable set.
Because this is a LEGO kit that excels in both form and function. It transforms well, it looks great as a truck, and it’s a striking take on Optimus Prime himself, managing to feel imposing and present.
Mid-switch over, it can feel a little flimsy – and you’ll need to add or remove a small number of bricks as well as twist and pivot parts – but it all locks together well. In robot mode Optimus has a good deal of articulation, and the detail throughout it sublime.
LEGO Succulents
LEGO Succulents is our favourite of all the horticultural LEGO sets released in recent years – which between them stand as some of the most distinct the Danish firm has ever put out. We’ve seen bouquets and wreaths and bonsai trees that all do a remarkable job of capturing organic forms from rigid plastic bricks. Almost every such set seems to proudly assert: ‘yes – this is what is possible with LEGO’.
Those sets can also be rather pricey – as are a number of other options on this list. But LEGO’s recent Succulents set brings something a little more affordable. It includes nine plants such as cacti, and can be built in different arrangements for different display cases. It even has something of a ‘multiplayer’ mode, with three sets of instructions letting you simultaneously work on different parts of the build with friends and family.
LEGO Atari 2600
Following on from LEGO’s Nintendo Entertainment System set, with the LEGO Atari 2600 the company’s designers have revisited one of the most important, influential pieces of gaming hardware yet ever released. The LEGO Atari 2600 doesn’t deserve all the credit, but like so much from the Pong company, it left a profound legacy, while doing a hell of a lot of work to bring gaming into the mainstream.
And wow – the LEGO version packs a lot in. There’s the console, with an opening section that pops out a tiny diorama of a gaming den from the era. Then you get three classic game carts, the machine’s beloved joystick controller, a cartridge rack, and a further trio of mini dioramas that represent the gameplay of each cartridge. The LEGO Atari 2600 sure doesn’t come at a pocket money price, but if you’re into classic consoles it absolutely brings value.
LEGO Technic Ferrari Daytona
There are more mechanically elaborate Technic sets out there, but the LEGO Technic Ferrari Daytona does an amazing job of combining looks normally best achieved through LEGO System, with the function and complexity Technic serves up. It would almost be a spoiler to detail the build process too much, because Technic offers a voyage of discovery as you push parts together. But, if you like the sound of constructing a V12 engine with moving pistons, it might be time to get technical.
A very quick primer on ‘the other LEGO system’ – Technic: some of you mature adults reading may remember the older generation of Technic, which made heavy use of studded LEGO bricks with holes along their side. You still see a few of those bricks in modern sets, but around 2000, Technic went ‘studless’, introducing a whole new family of elements and building opportunities.
It distanced Technic a little further from what is strictly called ‘LEGO System’, which all the other sets here use – but also allowed LEGO designers and custom builders to create much more complex models with working gearboxes, authentic suspension geometry, and even Bluetooth motors to allow remote control.
LEGO Galaxy Explorer
If you’ve checked out our updated list of the most valuable LEGO sets ever, you’ll know how much love there is for the classic 1970s and 1980s LEGO ‘Space’ line – enough to make one such set worth a shade over $10,000. Too much for you? Try the recently released LEGO Galaxy Explorer instead. While on paper it is part of the LEGO Ideas theme, in spirit it continues the Space theme. In fact, it’s a direct homage to the 1979 set also named Galaxy Explorer.
What you get in the box is the parts to build a fairly large starship precisely in the Space style. Its greatest accomplishment is how it blends classic LEGO style with modern building techniques. The Galaxy Explorer is very much a current generation set in terms of quality and nuance, but it makes charming concessions to how LEGO used to be, including the included robot that very much returns to the basic building methods of the past.
LEGO James Bond Aston Martin DB5
The LEGO James Bond Aston Martin DB5 – a brick-made version of the most iconic, charming, and gadget-packed car in film history – is arguably the greatest toy vehicle to ever release. The car is just as you remember it from Goldfinger: revolving number plate, front-wing machine guns, ejector seat, and a six-cylinder engine under the hood.
Not only is it an authentic recreation of Bond’s Aston Martin, it’s an elegant model in its own right. A must for James Bond fans? Probably.
LEGO Typewriter
Such is the realism and style of the achingly vintage LEGO Typewriter, that at a glance it can appear like the real thing. Typewriters might seem like an ancient relic to so many people today, but back in the early 1990s some of us were still using them occasionally to submit school work (you’re welcome to tell us we still look young at this point!). And coming from the era they did, they bring bags of style spoken in curved lines and glinting mechanisms.
Sure, the LEGO Typewriter doesn’t actually work, but it comes bristling with smart mechanisms, and is perhaps a Technic set on the inside, and a LEGO System set on the outside. It takes a piece of paper, hitting the keys makes the parts chatter away and the carriage slide across… and then you get to whack the carriage back to where it started, just like the real thing. It was based on the LEGO founder’s own machine, and comes with a typed letter from the current CEO, for you to display with this most handsome set.
LEGO Infinity Gauntlet
If LEGO isn’t just for kids, Marvel definitely isn’t, so it should be no surprise that our list contains the LEGO Infinity Gauntlet – perhaps those movies’ most iconic object, recreated in brick form. Coveted by Thanos, and used to murder half the universe, you can now build this weapon of mass destruction yourself, and hang it around your home for all to see.
The detail is brilliant, but the gauntlet’s posable digits make it shine. Standing over a foot tall, the included stand makes it look something like a trophy; fitting for the most powerful glove in the universe.
LEGO The Office
Following on from the LEGO Friends kit, the officially licenced LEGO The Office set provides the central locale of a popular TV show, and crams it with detail that make playful nods to the fictional world of its source material. There’s something about this set that takes us way back to the early, primitive LEGO houses – and yet it’s a very contemporary build, and a delight to get familiar with.
It’s based on The Office US; something worth bearing in mind for devotees to the UK version. But if you have any love for the American show, this could be the one for you. Because just like its inspiration, it thrives in making the mundane reality of an office something wonderful.
Source: Wargamer
