An interview with the designer of the LEGO Eiffel Tower, Rok Zgalin Kobe

November 27, 2022 | 1

In September, I had the opportunity to travel to the LEGO Campus in Billund, Denmark for Fan Media Days 2022, an annual event hosted by the LEGO Ambassador Network for a select group of LEGO Fan Media.

We got a preview of upcoming LEGO sets and I had the honour of interviewing Rok Žgalin Kobe, designer of the  10307 Eiffel Tower, which at 1.49m high, is the tallest LEGO set ever.

If you were lucky enough to pick up the LEGO Eiffel Tower, I hope this video gives you a deeper understanding of the design process, and the design thinking behind this hugely ambitious build, as you embark on this incredible build!

You can order 10307 Eiffel Tower via these regional product pages below.

• 10307 Eiffel Tower [US] – US$629.99 
• 10307 Eiffel Tower [AUS] – AU$999.99 
• 10307 Eiffel Tower [UK] – £554.99 
• 10307 Eiffel Tower [EU] – €629.99 
• 10307 Eiffel Tower [CA] – CAD$799.99 

Check out the full interview with Rok which I’ve uploaded to the Jay’s Brick Blog Youtube channel, and some of the more interesting discussion points transcribed and abridged below.

You can also check out my review of 10307 Eiffel Tower for a more detailed look at the set!

What don’t fans realise about LEGO designs

There is a lot of considerations that that don’t have to go into making a fan-built MOC, same as when I design a concept model. You just have to sell the idea. LEGO is world-leading at that because at the end of the day, it’s a toy and you have to treat it as such

For example, I don’t know if you know that, but there’s a very big design consideration for every step in the building instructions – it has to adhere to product safety. It cannot pose, let’s say, a stabbing danger. I’ll explain that through an anecdote that you can visually picture.

Imagine that there’s a dad building this set and and any of the possible 1,000 steps, he steps away and in comes a toddler age three, and manages to trip right before it and falls on it eye-first. That’s like the worst case scenario, but it can happen.

So at any point in time, there mustn’t be a piece that’s a stabbing danger, like a locked technic axle. It would help me with the stability if I could build it in such a way, but I can’t. So that’s something that fans don’t realize.

For example, when you’re building, let’s say, an Architecture Skylines set, which has to be very sturdy to support a thin tower, but they have to be weak enough not to present a stabbing danger for an unsuspecting child. That one fact right there influences a lot of the design process.

That’s the “high quality” behind the scenes that fans don’t know about.

The LEGO Eiffel Tower was an architectural and logistical challenge

This model was really an architectural and logistical challenge, and an engineering challenge. Firstly how it’s built, what will the building flow be? How will you put it together? Will it stand together? Will it hold together? How will you disassemble it? You’ll need to be able to lift it up, to vacuum around it and whatnot. And of course, it needs to be designed to withstand the stresses of time.

Which era of the Eiffel Tower is this from?

It’s an amalgamation through time, so I’ve taken the liberty of (making it) the best version of everything.

In the original they were a Victorian balustrades (on the first platform), so it was very different than what from what we know it today.

I’ve omitted the restaurants here on the pavilion. You don’t see them from the ground level because you’re used to looking at it from the normal Paris pictures. While we’re looking at this from the bird’s eye view, they would steal too much of attention if they were here.

I’ve taken some artistic liberty to bring out the best version of it.

It’s a LEGO model, I’m not going for a diecast model, so it’s a LEGO representation and whatever is best for the LEGO model, and that doesn’t necessarily translate into copying everything.

It’s about capturing the true essence of it.

Best way to build it?

As the designer, I would advise against speed building and trying to do it in one go.

It’s not something where you should get dehydrated by rather enjoy it with a glass of wine, if you’re old enough. Some nice music, maybe a documentary on the Eiffel Tower next to it so that it enriches the experience, to soak in all the hours that you will have to put in to finish it.

Designed when no travel was possible

There was no travelling, so I visited (the Eiffel Tower) by Google a bunch of times. Otherwise, I would’ve loved to as I believe you can capture some of the original by being exposed to it. I was fortunate enough to have been there with my mum, albeit when I was a kid. But still it counts. I have the full Eiffel Tower experience, I think that way. So I do remember it right.

Problems encountered during the design of the set that gave you great satisfaction to solve?

It’s the nature of it that it’s made out of a lot of elements in the same colour which could create potential conflicts which have all been resolved because we’re doing this through bag splits and so forth.

You’re using different elements then in different bags. I’m hoping for that people will appreciate this set is through its building flow.

For example, there is no repetition of bags.

It’s by far the largest bag split ever. But you’ll never be searching for the same element twice because they will all be in order. From 1 to the end, so no duplicates there.

I know it sounds simple, but trust me, this is an engineering conundrum because there are packaging considerations, weighing considerations, then a lot of things that involve a lot of the people down the line.

This set was developed with that in mind from the get go, so a lot of collaboration with packaging and engineering teams. This was a tough one logistically by the sheer number of elements it has, the steps and so forth.

Hopefully you’ll see that the instructions are very legible and easy to follow, and they fit nicely in the booklet.

I tackle the hard things so you don’t have to encounter when building it.

Most rewarding part of the entire design journey?

I’d say that I did the original concept model justic, so that this is as good as the concept model. One sells the dream, but the other one has to face reality.

It’s just like with sports cars, where concepts are very nice, but in reality, you can’t see the road from where you’re sitting because it’s too low.

It’s the little things that have to matter in the maturation phase, and we have a lot of that discrepancy with LEGO as well. I’m glad that I was able to honour the colleagues who’ve built it in the design phase so that it made it to the final product looking as it does. So yeah, I’m happy with the overall outcome.

Difference to 10181 Eiffel Tower?

The differences are intentional, because even though the original has original LEGO DNA of stacking bricks.

If we would have replicated that, it would be more of the same. So here it’s showcasing what can still be done with just using existing LEGO elements, but in a novel way. We’re building upon the LEGO system, so we’re updating the older one by bringing in much more detail and different building techniques, and showing just how versatile the LEGO system in play actually is.

If you want to know, even though the old one, I don’t believe had 2×4 bricks, this one has bricks in the base, just so that it’s nice and sturdy.

It’s still built in the old fashioned way that we’re very much familiar with. But since you’ll be spending quite a bit of hours with this one, you have to make sure that your journey includes a few things that you would not have otherwise thought of.

Why 10,001 pieces?

A sheer coincidence! Nah, it’s a nice symmetrical number, and goes well with the Eiffel Tower which is very symmetrical. It looks good on the box. It’s also a funny number. I do have some leeway when designing to decide on things like that.

What’s one thing people might miss?

You want to take the time to really look at it closely, and you can only get it while building.

Once while you’re building it, you’ll come across fun things which are actual representations of the real Eiffel Tower, for example, it’s very interesting how the elevators work on the real ones, because they don’t go all the way up and down because then the cables would be too long.

So they meet in the middle and they go back up again. And then you change the elevator and go back up again. So you can actually see them in corresponding positions inside.

And there’s a flashback, (the elevators) are made in the same way as the ones on the old Eiffel Tower, so that we pay a bit of homage to the to the previous model as well.

Thanks for reading/watching! Hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at the LEGO Eiffel Tower!

10307 Eiffel Tower is now available exclusively from LEGO.com or your local LEGO Store, and if you order 10307 Eiffel Tower from 25-28 November, you’ll also qualify for the 40579 Eiffel’s Apartment set, which contains a Gustave Eiffel minifigure!

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