The second time is usually when an experiment turns into a practice. LEGO has now put a 3D-printed part into a mass-market set for the second time. TCT Magazine reports that the new LEGO Icons Venetian Neighbourhood includes a small additively manufactured street piano that LEGO says you can actually play a little tune on, and that it sits among the set's 5,682 pieces. The first printed element was a miniature train in last year's LEGO Icons Holiday Express Train set, which TCT describes as the first time LEGO had deployed additive manufacturing for a mass-produced product. With a second set using the same approach, the train looks less like a one-off novelty and more like the start of a manufacturing channel.
The set itself is large. Brickset's reveal coverage, which reproduces LEGO's product listing text, lists it as set 11388. It is rated 18+ and priced at $549.99, £449.99 and €499.99. The piano is a small part in that build, but for anyone who follows manufacturing it is the most interesting one.
What LEGO Actually Built
LEGO's own description, as quoted by Brickset, sets the scene along a canal. There is a luxury villa, an artisan glassblowing workshop and an astronomical clock tower. A gondola sails beneath an arched bridge, and the set includes 17 characters: gondoliers, carnival-goers, tourists and musicians. Floors and roofs come off, and sections can be rearranged. The listing also invites builders to "play notes on the 3D-printed street piano." That LEGO names the printing process in its own product copy matters. The printed part is being marketed as a feature, not hidden as a production detail.
According to TCT, the piano's function comes from a turning mechanism, which is activated by a connecting small flower vase element that sits on top of the instrument. The part is all black. The sources do not describe how the mechanism is laid out inside, so we won't guess. Still, a functional, moving, sound-producing part sounds like a harder brief than a miniature train, even though neither source gives engineering detail on either part.
Which Process? LEGO Isn't Saying
LEGO has not said which additive process makes the piano. TCT's assessment is that it looks most likely to be selective laser sintering, the same technology it believes produced last year's miniature train, and it notes that LEGO has previously shared that it uses SLS machines from EOS. That is a reasonable inference, not a confirmation, and readers should treat it that way.
If the inference is right, the choice makes sense. Powder-bed polymer processes don't need support structures, and they can nest many small parts in a single build volume. Those are the properties you want when you need to make a large number of identical small components. A uniform black finish also fits what you would expect from a dyed powder-bed part. But LEGO has not published materials, machine counts, build volumes or per-part costs, so anything beyond TCT's "most likely SLS" is speculation.
A Decade of Groundwork
None of this came from nowhere. TCT notes that LEGO has used polymer 3D printing for prototyping and design testing for over a decade. Like many large manufacturers, the company has long relied on additive manufacturing behind the scenes. In a 2023 conversation with TCT, quoted again in the new piece, LEGO's then Senior Additive Manufacturing Manager Mandanà Moshiri called metal additive manufacturing "vital," with LEGO also using it to produce moulds. She added that without it, "there are some LEGO elements that otherwise would not be possible."
That context helps. At LEGO's scale, the core of the business is injection moulding, and metal printing has apparently been helping that core rather than competing with it. What changed with the Holiday Express Train, and is now repeated with the Venetian Neighbourhood, is that printed polymer parts are leaving the prototyping lab and going into consumer boxes. Two sets is still a tiny share of LEGO's catalogue. But both are Icons sets, a line aimed at adult builders, which suggests the company sees printed elements as a way to add something special to its high end.
Brickset's commenters connect the piano directly to the Holiday Express Train precedent, and some are arguing about whether a printed piece belongs in a LEGO set at all. That argument is worth taking seriously. LEGO's reputation rests on moulded tolerances, on clutch power and consistency built up over decades. A printed part, especially one with a different surface finish, is a visible break from that, and some collectors will see it as a compromise rather than a feature. Others in the same thread were pleased by the part's appearance and the idea that it plays music.
When It Ships
The two sources disagree on the date. TCT gives the availability date as November 4, at a UK retail price of £449.99. Brickset lists the set as available at LEGO.com from November 1, with a gift-with-purchase, 40898 Venetian Water Taxi, offered at release. We could not check LEGO's own product page directly, so confirm the date with LEGO or your retailer before planning a purchase around it.
What It Means for Makers
For people who run printers at home or in small shops, the piano matters less as a toy and more as a signal of where industrial polymer printing is going.
Additive is finding a role next to moulding, not replacing it. LEGO is not printing bricks. It is printing a single odd, low-volume part in a set otherwise made of moulded elements. That is the same way many small product businesses already use printing: mould the volume parts, print the specialty ones. Seeing the world's best-known moulding operation adopt that split is a useful validation.
Function is the bar now, not just looks. The Holiday Express Train part showed LEGO could ship a printed piece. The piano shows it is willing to ship one that LEGO says plays a little tune in buyers' hands. Anyone designing printed mechanisms knows that moving parts are where print orientation, clearances and surface finish matter most. LEGO has not shared its tolerances, but putting a working mechanism in a box at this price suggests it is confident enough in its process to stand behind it.
Be skeptical of process claims. The most widely repeated technical detail, that the piano is SLS, is an informed inference from TCT, based on LEGO's earlier statements about EOS equipment. It is not a disclosure. If you see coverage stating the process, material or machine as fact, ask where that came from.
Expect the collector argument to continue. The Brickset comment debate is an early sign of a wider question: will buyers accept printed parts as equal to moulded ones? How the Venetian Neighbourhood sells, and whether a third printed element follows, will say more about LEGO's plans than any press release.
Bottom Line
A playable, vase-operated street piano is a charming detail in a 5,682-piece set. The more important point is that LEGO has now shipped printed parts in two consecutive large sets. For a company built on injection moulding, that looks like a deliberate choice. The open questions are the ones makers care about most: what process and material, at what volume, and at what cost per part. LEGO isn't answering them yet.
