Lego began in 1932 in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish furniture maker. During the Great Depression, he began to make miniature versions of his products, which inspired him to produce toys. In 1934 the company was named "LEGO", a contraction from the Danish phrase "leg Godt", meaning "play well".
In 1947, after World War II, when injection molding was introduced to Denmark, Christiansen bought an injection molding machine for the company to make toys. That same year, he and his son obtained samples of plastic, interlocking Kiddicraft bricks, which inspired the first Lego brick created in 1936. The Lego bricks in its present form, with hollow tubes in the underside for better interlocking capability, was patented in 1958. Over the decades, the Lego system continued to be modified, with new molds and colors being added and removed.
Today, Lego is a profitable brand offering construction kits and related products and services, including Lego board games, retail stores, video games, films, theme parks, and consultation services. Despite its expansion, the company remains privately held. Lego has had a significant impact on various areas of popular culture.
Beginnings (1932–1959)
The Lego Group was founded in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund, Denmark. In 1916, Christiansen purchased Billund Maskinsnedkeri, a woodworking and carpentry shop in Billund, for 10,000 DKK. Initially, he and his staff primarily constructed houses and furniture. Following a fire that destroyed his workshop in 1924, Christiansen constructed a larger facility and worked towards expanding the business even further. However, the onset of the Great Depression brought fewer customers, forcing him to adapt. He started crafting miniature versions of his products as design aids, and it was these tiny stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to make toys.
On August 10, 1932, Christiansen started making wooden toys such as piggy banks, pull toys, and miniature vehicles. Due to the challenging economy, the business often struggled, sometimes accepting food as payment from local farmers. Christiansen continued making furniture alongside the toys to stay solvent. A brief surge in sales during the mid-1930s yo-yo fad quickly subsided, but Christiansen repurposed leftover yo-yo parts as wheels for his toy trucks. Around this time, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, joined the company.
In 1934, Christiansen held a competition among his staff to name the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. Though he considered "Legio" (implying a "legion of toys"), Christiansen ultimately settled on "Lego", a contraction of the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well". Coincidentally, the Lego Group later discovered that the word "Lego" also loosely translates to "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin.
Following World War II, plastics became available in Denmark, and Lego purchased a plastic injection molding machine in 1947. One of the first modular toys to be produced was a truck that could be taken apart and reassembled. In 1947, Ole Kirk and Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. Hilary Fisher Page designed these "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks." In 1939, Page applied for a patent on hollow plastic cubes with four studs on top (British Patent Nº.529,580) that allowed their positioning atop one another without lateral movement.
In 1944, Page applied "Improvement to Toy Building Blocks" as an addition to the previous patent, in which he describes a building system based on rectangular hollow blocks with 2X4 studs on top enabling the construction of walls with staggered rows and window openings. The addition was granted in 1947 as British Patent Nº 587,206. In 1949, the Lego Group began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks." Lego bricks, then manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another but could be stuck together. They had several round studs on top and a hollow rectangular bottom. They would stick together, but loosely enough that they could be pulled apart. In 1953, the bricks were given a new name: Lego Mursten, or "Lego Bricks."
In the 1950s, the LEGO Group made its first moves into foreign markets. The early focus was on the Nordic countries. Licensed production started in Norway in 1953 in partnership with Svein Strømberg, Oslo, under the corporate name Norske LEGIO A/S. In 1954, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen became the junior managing director of the Lego Group. His conversation with an overseas buyer struck the idea of a toy "system", with many toys in a line of related products. He evaluated their available products and saw the plastic bricks as the best candidate for such a system. In 1955, it was Sweden’s turn, and the same year, a partnership was organized in Iceland. Plastic products initially were not well received by customers, who preferred wooden or metal toys. Many of Lego's shipments were returned, following poor sales. In 1955, Lego released the "Town Plan" using plastic Lego building bricks as the system.
While initially moderately received, the original building bricks were unpopular as they did not stick together well enough, and lacked versatility. This changed in 1958 when hollow tubes were incorporated into the bricks' underside. This innovation provided robust base support, dramatically enhancing both the bricks' interlocking strength and their potential for diverse constructions. The company patented the new design, as well as several similar designs to avoid competition. 1958 also saw the death of Ole Kirk Christiansen, with Godtfred assuming leadership of the company.
Change to plastic bricks (1960–1969)
In 1960, a warehouse fire destroyed most of Lego's wooden toy inventory, prompting Godtfred to cease wooden toy production entirely. Consequently, Godtfred's brothers, Gerhardt (then head of wooden toys) and Karl Georg, left Lego to found their own company, Bilofix. By the end of the year, the Lego Group was employing more than 500 people. Monday, 21 September 2020
In 1961, seeking to enter the North American market but lacking the logistical capabilities to do so, Lego made an arrangement allowing Samsonite to begin producing and selling their products in the United States and Canada. 1961 and 1962 saw the introduction of the first Lego wheels, an addition that expanded the potential for building cars, trucks, buses, and other vehicles from Lego bricks. Also, during this time, the Lego Group introduced toys targeted explicitly toward the pre-school market.
In 1963 cellulose acetate, the material used to create Lego bricks, was replaced by the more stable acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS plastic), which is still in use today. ABS is non-toxic, less prone to discoloration and warping, and is more resistant to heat, acids, salt, and other chemicals. Samsonite manufacturing in North America did not switch at the same time, and still used some degree of cellulose acetate in its Lego products. 1964 was the first year that saw the inclusion of instruction manuals in Lego sets.
A notable Lego Group series, Sunday, 29 October 2023 the Lego train system, was released in 1966. The original train sets included a 4.5-volt (which was changed to a 12-volt version two years later) motor, battery box, and rails.
On 7 June 1968, the first Legoland Park was opened in Billund, featuring elaborate miniature towns built entirely from Lego bricks. The three-acre (12,000 m2) theme park attracted 625,000 visitors in its first year alone. Over the next two decades, the theme park grew to more than eight times its original size and eventually attracted close to a million visitors annually. Sales of Lego sets also reached more than eighteen million units in 1968.
In 1969 the Duplo system was introduced. Duplo bricks are much larger than Lego bricks, making them safer for young children, but the two systems are compatible: Lego bricks can be fitted neatly onto Duplo bricks, allowing a seamless transition to the Lego system as children outgrow their Duplo bricks. The name Duplo comes from the Latin word duplus, which translates literally as double, meaning that a Duplo brick is exactly twice the dimension of a Lego building brick (2× height by 2× width by 2× depth = 8× the volume of a brick).
Expansion (1970–1991) During the last three decades of the 20th century, Lego expanded into new areas of toy making and marketing. In 1971, the company began targeting girls by introducing furniture and dollhouses under the Lego Homemaker theme. In 1972 Lego added boat and ship sets, with floating hull pieces, and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's son, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, joined the managerial staff, after earning business degrees in Switzerland and Denmark. One of Kjeld's first achievements with the company was the foundation of manufacturing facilities, as well as a research and development department that would be responsible for keeping the company's manufacturing methods up to date.
The Lego logo was redesigned in 1973, replacing various logos used previously to unify the brand. The company opened its first North American Lego production facility in Enfield, Connecticut, in the United States that same year.
In 1975 "Expert Series" sets were introduced, geared towards older, more experienced Lego builders followed by the "Expert Builder" sets in 1977. The technical sets featured moving parts such as gears, differentials, cogs, levers, axles, and universal joints and permitted the construction of realistic models such as automobiles, with functional rack and pinion steering and lifelike engine movements. In August 1978 the Lego "mini-figure" was added. The small Lego people had posable arms and legs, and initially a single head with a smiling face. The figure was used in many varieties of Lego sets, allowing the construction of towns populated with the smiling mini-figure Lego citizens. Lego also expanded into space with the creation of Lego Space sets with astronaut mini-figures, rockets, lunar rovers, and spaceships, and into the medieval territory with the Castle theme.
In 1979 Lego introduced the Scala series, featuring jewelry elements marketed towards young girls. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen also became the president of Lego that year.
Since the 1960s, educators had seen Lego bricks' productive potential as being an invaluable asset in helping children to develop creativity and problem-solving abilities. Teachers had been using Lego bricks in the classroom for a variety of reasons. In 1980, the Lego Group established the Educational Products Department (eventually renamed Lego Dacta, in 1989), to expand the educational possibilities of their toys. A packing and assembly factory opened in Switzerland, followed by another in Jutland, Denmark, that manufactured Lego tyres.
Between the 1960s and 90s, Lego worked with Royal Dutch Shell in allowing Shell branding on certain items.
In 1980 the second generation of Lego trains appeared. As before, these were available in either 4.5 V (battery-powered) or 12 V (mains powered; not available in North America), but with a much wider variety of accessories, including working lights, remote-controlled signals and decouplers.