LEGO Ideas 21359 Italian Riviera review

LEGO Ideas 21359 Italian Riviera is a delightful and detailed exploration of an iconic Mediterranean location.

Colourful, scenic and packed with rich, bright Mediterranean architecture crammed into the tight, weaving and at times mountainous coastline of the Liguria region of north-western Italy, there’s nothing quite like the crescent-shaped Italian Riviera. And so where better to visit in LEGO form for the latest LEGO Ideas set than here? It was the basis of Alex Sahli’s successful fan submission dating back three years now, and makes for a very interesting and quite unique official LEGO Ideas set coming late summer 2025.

21359 Italian Riviera

Release: Aug 7, 2025

Retiring: Dec 31, 2027

Price: £249.99 / $299.99 / €279.99

Pieces: 3,251

Minifigures: 10

Along roughly 350km of coastline, the Italian Riviera includes notable towns such as The Cinque Terre and Porto Venere (both now part of the region’s UNESCO World Heritage Site) and many others that are world famous, such as Portofino, Bordighera and Lerici. The Mediterranean climate, the dramatic coastline, the 300+ days of sunshine each year and the vibrant, colourful buildings create a culturally rich and now tourist-packed destination quite unlike anywhere else in the world.

21359 Italian Riviera takes a great deal of Alex Sahli’s original conceptualisation of that world-famous coast, including most positively the sizeable piece count and relatively large scale, to make for a 3,251-piece behemoth offering two two-storey buildings and one three-storey building packed into a cutaway of coastline.

Alongside a hefty minifigure count of 10, there is plenty of detail worked into the construction of the set, and plenty of story that the final model can tell. In all, this is a set the piece count and premise of which hold lots of promise, all delivered across an engrossing and very clever LEGO set.

Engrossing is certainly the word to describe putting together 21359 Italian Riviera, in a build split across 25 numbered bags and that for the first part is very much focused on a pretty detailed base. This is because beyond supporting a large weight of bricks (the final model is a heavy one), there is a 30-degree-ish angle worked right across the middle, as well as a few changes in surface height.

These take a while to build into the model correctly, but it’s very clear why – the angle allows one of the three buildings to stand askew from the other two, whilst the changes in level are to open up lower levels to the other two buildings that actually sit a couple of steps down from the pathway outside.

These are central points to the first quarter-or-so of the build for 21359, but add a level of definition to the final model that works so brilliantly and authentically to the Italian architecture to be found on the Riviera.

The buildings themselves are designed slightly differently to the original fan submission – two of the colours are changed, and the detailing on the walls is approached differently, although with a nice nod. Instead of the light yellow, white and coral exteriors, the LEGO Ideas team have gone with light yellow, light nougat and the new reddish orange.

But where the designers have more sparingly chosen to work in imperfections to the rendered effect of each building’s exterior, they have done so using the same mix of techniques as the fan design, in particular with masonry bricks and plates attached to headlight bricks.

The colour swap works excellently and very much helps to pull the model together in a way that really captures the essence of the many picturesque towns that are painted in such bright, warm shades. It’s a colour combination that we haven’t really built any other LEGO buildings out of too, and really gives the set its own eye-catching identity. It is also a stronger, smoother palette to nicely balance against the hints of natural environment built around the base, including the bright blue sea and the jagged dark grey and dark tan rockwork.

One key difference between Alex’s original fan design and the official LEGO Ideas set is in really maximising the use of interior spaces within each of the buildings to extend the storytelling within the set even further. The original design included starting points to what each building could represent, from a fishery and gelato shop to living areas upstairs – the LEGO Ideas team have really expanded upon those and worked in a lot more pieces and signs of such coastline lifestyles into the set.

The building on the right is the one with three storeys and now also has a balcony like the yellow building, and both of these extend into living areas upstairs that are really fleshed out with signs of Italian life (shoutout to the coffee pot on the stove and the dishes of food). The yellow building is actually connected at the top to the white building behind it, allowing for an apartment to be spread across them, while the orange building’s living area is split across its top two levels.

The exterior is as busy and eye-catching as the interiors, with more space opened up thanks to the design team choosing to remove the beach part to the original submission and stick with cobblestone pathway up to the water’s edge. There’s still space for a small, colourful fishing boat, but also a lot more walking and standing space for the 10 minifigures included.

21359 Italian Riviera is a fine example of LEGO Ideas at its strongest – taking something unique and otherwise previously untouched by the LEGO Group and fully embracing the concept to produce a LEGO experience unlike anything we have had before. We’ve put together plenty of buildings at this size, but this works in detail at a far more advanced and authentic level, in a way where techniques used to create effects are both interesting but wholly relevant to the final, intended effect.

The LEGO Ideas team could have been forgiven for offering up a colourful set based on a pretty location and leaving it there – instead, they take every opportunity with 21359 Italian Riviera to work colour, texture, story and detail into this model in a way that is guaranteed to stay with you long after you’ve built it.

Our honest opinion: 21359 Italian Riviera is LEGO Ideas at its very best, turning a unique concept into a wholly unique – and top-level – LEGO experience.

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

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