I’ve reviewed quite a few books about how to build buildings, cities, and architecture, but many of them focus on building them at minifigure scale. While it’s great that the minifigures have places to inhabit, sometimes LEGO builders want to build at a smaller scale. For such cases, there is microscale building.
LEGO Micro Cities: Build Your Own Mini Metropolis! by Jeff Friesen is a book teaching how to build those microscale cities. A focus on environment and buildings teach the reader how to build their mini metropolis in a variety of styles.
The book opens by teaching the reader how to build the base for their cities. Subways, waterways, streets, and foundations are lessons in how to take bricks and make them have the appearance and texture of the street level views of the municipality.
With the ground laid out, LEGO Micro Cities: Build Your Own Mini Metropolis! teaches how to build the actual buildings. Rather than sticking to modern cityscapes, the book creates eight different types of cities. Friesen starts with a more historically inspired city (a mix of different historical city types to show off different architectural designs from different archival construction) before bringing the reader to more modern edifices.
After those couple chapters, Friesen brings us to more futuristic and fantastical designs. From steampunk to art deco to neo-futuristic creations, he takes us through how to make these alternative and visionary designs of what could be seen one day in the skylines that frame our views as we gaze upon them from afar.
For anyone who wants to learn to build at a smaller scale and create, LEGO Micro Cities: Build Your Own Mini Metropolis! is a great resource for learning to build at micro scale. From towns to megalopolises, the book is the perfect launching point for attaining the knowledge on how to build small and expand into the larger realm of imagination.
