41757 Botanical Garden and LEGO Friends’ bright new future

41757 Botanical Garden sees LEGO Friends take a trip into nature and discover along the way a whole new creative path for the theme.

Building and reviewing the entire June 2023 wave of LEGO Friends sets has been eye-opening for two main reasons. First, for how much the theme continues to innovate in design, features, characters and story in ways that not only highlight where play in 2023 really is, but that also put the rest of the LEGO catalogue to shame. And second, for how at the same time this theme has now just opened up to a whole new creative direction and with that, a genuinely universal audience. And it’s an audience that is already here and one that is fully deserved.

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We’re talking about 41757 Botanical Garden, a set that since its reveal and then sell-out summer launch has rightfully been getting a lot of attention and praise. Where LEGO Friends traditionally has always chosen some of the most interesting subject matters to turn into LEGO – be they completely new concepts never before seen in brick form, or often-visited ideas wholly reimagined – it has usually done so while building for a younger audience, and in a world that is totally bathed in technicolour, from the very brightest blues to the most vibrant violets, and every iridescent and fluorescent shade in between.

Yet with 41757 Botanical Garden, LEGO Friends has opened up to a completely new and far more mature LEGO audience. And mature really is the word here, from the interesting techniques that make up the structure of the large greenhouse to the finer details that breathe life into the plants and trees both inside the structure and surrounding it, to the colours used to build all this and everything in between.

41757 Botanical Garden takes a far more organic approach to this exploration of nature than any LEGO Friends set has before, and in a way that wholly separates this set from the rest of the theme and far more clearly ties it to other themes across the LEGO collection – themes that previously would have been seen as much more mature than anything Friends could produce.

Matching that maturity with the depth of exploration that only LEGO Friends can – which previously its vibrant colour choices could often camouflage for wider LEGO fans – 41757 Botanical Garden sets a significant marker for the theme and, into its second decade of existence, a sign that it is ready to pair its unique, explorative and story-based form of creativity with a new sense of credibility, all for an audience that may have grown up with LEGO Friends over the years, or that may be discovering this theme for the first time as an older fan.

The plant life recreated in 41757 Botanical Garden is inspired by real plants that are directly referenced in the instructions book and realised in brick form with techniques to rival any 18+ set, while the ornate trees and Koi pond speak to scenery that is developed both inside and out of the two-storey greenhouse. The characters are placed into the set with that extra number of accessories and that finer attention to who they may be or why they may be here, to offer story and exploration to the scene in a way that works both for younger play and older display.

Taking an engaging and eye-catching subject matter, giving it the same attentive design care as any other LEGO Friends set, raising the age level and introducing a far more real-world colour scheme creates not only a first LEGO Friends set that genuinely opens up to the wider LEGO fanbase, but that showcases a fascinating potential creative direction that the theme can hopefully explore again in future sets.

This LEGO Friends set was provided for review purposes by the LEGO Group.

41757 Botanical Garden is available now as part of a new range of LEGO Friends released this summer – support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO through one of our affiliate links.