Set 10197 is part of Lego's collectible Modular series, depicting highly detailed buildings in a typical rural American town. This set specifically depicts a fire station that was built in 1932, the year of Lego's founding in Denmark.

The pieces for the ground floor have been unpacked. Compared to my most recent build, which was the Death Star from the Star Wars series (complete with tons of gray), I like the color palette of this set much better.

Toward the lower left, I have already assembled the four figures: a blond-haired fireman, a dark-haired fireman, a fireman with a cook's hat, and a civilian woman with a purse (possibly the girlfriend of one of the firemen). Despite being designed in progressive Denmark, Lego's figures can be surprisingly old-fashioned; I would've loved a firewoman, for starters.

Lego first introduced minifigures in 1978, and until 1989, every minifigure had the same facial expression: a generic smile with two dot eyes and an arching parenthesis mouth. The Modular series sets are targeted for adult collectors who had most likely grown up with those classic Town sets in the 1970s and the 1980s; as a result, Modular series minifigures do retain the classic facial expression.