LEGO Icons 10312 Jazz Club could have been a lot darker

The next LEGO modular building – 10312 Jazz Club – avoids the gangster elements of the 1940s, but that doesn’t mean one can’t be added back in.

2023 is bringing us plenty of new sets, including a brand new entry in the Modular Buildings Collection. These buildings offers large-scale, fully enclosed structures with plenty of interior detail and easy connections to one another. This year’s set is 10312 Jazz Club, which pairs a musical venue with a pizzeria, a tailor and even a rooftop greenhouse.

The set is suitably bright and colourful to gel with its fellow Modular Buildings, but the set presented unusual design challenges compared to its predecessors. In an interview with Brickset, Anderson Ward Grubb ­– the set’s designer – explains how he tried to keep it suitable for a typical LEGO audience.

“We actually did a lot of thinking through the stories of this building, about how far we should go with it, because a lot of people associate the heyday of Jazz, the 1940s, with prohibition and gangsters and so on, which is obviously a bit too dark!”, said Grubb. “So it was actually quite a balancing act to try to avoid that if we could, by brightening up the other half of the building, and putting some fun stuff in.

“I don’t think we’ve used yellow in any significant amount in a modular and this colour maybe is a highlight. It might have shown up in a few bricks in the bookstore, but that’s about all.”

That makes sense given the LEGO Group’s broader design philosophy, although – ironically – it’s relatively simple to grime the set up with existing LEGO elements. The LEGO Collectible Minifigures line produced a gangster minifigure back in 2011 who was equipped with a black suit, a pistol and a violin case. (Somehow, we don’t think he’s going to a recital.) Considering other sets that flirt with organised crime sanitise the concept (such as 10246 Detective’s Office) this is a rather unusual character design by today’s standards.

Other options for adding a criminal element to the club include 7682 Shanghai Chase, a 2009 release in the LEGO Indiana Jones line. This features a pair of gangsters in sleek suits, as well as a pair of suitably retro cars to drive around in.

Since these sets are rather old now, finding them on the secondary market may be difficult – and demand a high price. As such, you may need to think outside the box if you want to introduce a criminal element to your modular buildings.

10312 Jazz Club is available at LEGO.com from January 1, 2023 onwards. It’ll cost you £199.99 / $229.99 / €229.99 to add it to your collection. If you want to make a more informed decision before buying it, be sure to check out our Jazz Club critical roundup for more insight into its strengths and weaknesses.

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