Legos are a lot like popcorn: Once you dip your hand into the basket, there’s no stopping till your knuckles hit the bottom. It’s the kind of toy that has no gender or maturity limits. Boys love them, girls love them, and, well, grown-ass women and men do too. Stepping into a Lego store is stirring, akin to giving your life a brief spin-off, in which you could be an engineer, an architect, a renowned designer or, what the hell, God.
The entrance to Beijing’s Lego flagship store reinforces the numinous feel. The imposing traditional Chinese roof made of colored blocks seems to whisper, “this is not a Lego store – this is a Lego temple.”
Alas, step in, and you’re back on Earth, and even the angular dragon sculpture wouldn’t fool you. For the biggest store in one of the world’s largest cities, this one lacks in ambition, be it in the plain space design, awkward Lego-art or how products are presented on the shelves. One would naturally expect more from a company that gave us Legolands and Lego movies, definitely more than a bland retail space with some blocks for kids to play and some pixelated decorations for their parents to photograph.
The “Mosaic Maker” might be the only memorable schtick of this place, allowing visitors to create personalized Lego portraits, which is, well, pretty damn cool.
And foreseeing a storm of outrage over some mean adults critiquing a kids’ store, it’s worth to highlight yet once again that Legos are for everyone, not only for your rowdy 5-year-old.
[Images via Grigor Grigorian/That's]
See a listing for Lego Flagship Store
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