This is a MOC of Chanel Crystal House by YellowBox which Mould King had stolen the design. The Crystal Houses are designed by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, a striking glass brick facade along one of the canal houses on PC Hooftstraat at Amsterdam. Chanel operated a single story store from 2016 and Hermes had taken over the lease in 2019. We aren’t sure how Mould King managed to get their hands on the instruction as YellowBox never release any manual. In China, you could buy the the instruction of YellowBox LEGO MOC Chanel Crystal from Taobao, or get for free if you know the way. The photos of this review is courtesy of CK.

Open Box of Mould King 16021 Chanel Crystal House

This is from Mould King Novatown series, the box stated there are at least 3800 pieces of bricks and recommended age is 8 years old.

Back of the box had the Crystal House putting side by side with LEGO Street Modular for size comparison.

Instruction manual.

Transfer decal, the Chanel has changed to CHHNFL.

This is the instruction on how to use transfer decal.

32 x 32 base plate and the supplier is Gobricks.

Unique dual serial of Gobricks part, in which LEGO serial 3811 is engraved along with Mould King serial 1200-01. If you go to Gobricks website, you can search either 3811 or 1200 for the base plate. The -01 is the mold number.

Numbering bags 1-13 and parts for lighting.

Scan the QR code for instruction to assemble the lighting.

Building in Progress

We realize Mould King did something stupid by breaking up big piece in original design to smaller one. We aren’t sure whether it’s an attempt to inflate the piece counts or trying to differentiate the design with the one from YellowBox.

Instruction manual had the wrong part picture while we got the correct part in the bag.

Correction sent by Mould King to various WeChat group.

Missing a part here and end result is a hole.

Can’t Mould King just give us 1 x 4 instead of two 1 x 1 and one 1 x 2?

The windows aren’t very secure due to weird steps during building.

Trans-clear parts really test your eyesight sorting and locating the right ones for building. The trans-clear 1 x 2 are the one with frosted horizontal line. This affect the overall look of the glass facade of the Crystal House.

You may change the wording to Chanel or the new tenant Hermes here.

The trans-clear bricks with frosted horizontal line are a bit annoying to look at. Also the big clear pieces had varying degree of scratches and more obvious when multiple pieces are placed together.

Mould King changes the combination of the trans-clear parts here. It’s 2 x 2 x 2 + 2 x 2 x 3 while the original design is 2 x 2 x 5. This will look better if trans-clear part without the frosted horizontal line are used instead.

The mannequin had a bit of problem. Solution is to add one single round stud.

Notice the hole due to missing part?

The black part conceal it.

The windows are perched on precariously.

Lights up!

Again, problematic assembling method. Solution is single round stud.

Be careful with the part that has the hole, do place it on the right spot.

Another confusing step, the arrow pointed the spot where you put the brick with protruding hole.

Why don’t Mould King use 2 x 4 thin plate here?

Hard to get the top evenly thanks to overuse use of small parts.

Lights up again!

This is not making our life any easier.

No support beneath the slope pieces.

Another example of stupid steps, just give us a 2 x 4 instead of breaking into 3 parts.

The slope here is connected using single clip. Damn it, can’t Mould King give two clips per side?

CHHNFL Crystal House Completed

Mould King 16021 Chanel Crystal House completed!

Could you spot the missing part here?

The Crystal House looks wonderful with lighting.

Inner details at different levels.

The display is quite bare for a luxury boutique.

No customers due to corona virus outbreak.

Now come the important part. We will change CHHNFL to “CHANEL”.

The street sign is CHHNFL because it’s from the transfer decal.

Putting Chanel Crystal House beside the Town Hall for comparison.

Let’s do a comparison between YellowBox MOC and Mould King. The biggest difference is the use of orange parts by Mould King. The Crystal House in actual life use brownish bricks.









Summary for Mould King 16021 Chanel Crystal House

One must shop in style and arrived in sport cars. Cars aren’t included in this set.

The biggest pain point of Mould King 16021 Chanel Crystal House set is unnecessary breakdown of large pieces into smaller parts. This affect structural integrity in some part and we spent more time building the set. Also the use of trans-clear brick with frosted horizontal line make the glass facade less clear than it shall be. The orange wall supposed to be brown instead of orange. Perhaps Mould King thought this could make the set looks posh because the building had Hermes as new tenant. The part quality is top notch because they are sourced from Gobricks. You can order Mould King 16021 Chanel Crystal House from Aliexpress.

Other Makers of Non-LEGO Chanel Crystal House

There are three known maker of Chanel Crystal House so far. Beside Mould King, another clone maker Shenzhen Rael who also use Gobricks in its sets is to release Chanel Crystal House. Would Rael do better in replicating the boutique? Because Mould King and Rael both sourced their parts from Gobricks, the differentiating factor is the design.

Zhegao which is sub brand of LELE will be another maker of Crystal House but the brick quality won’t be as good as Gobricks.

Rael and Zhegao are yet to release their Chanel Crystal House at the point of writing.



