BILLUND, Denmark--Though it's hard to imagine a time without Lego, the world-famous plastic bricks didn't exist until 1949. And today's brick, with its three little tubes that ensure a snug fit with other bricks, didn't come on the scene until 1957.
But the Lego company has been around much longer than that. It may be something most people have never even heard about; Ole Kirk Kristiansen's little outfit began in this small Danish town as a one-man operation turning out wooden toys. Being a world-famous brand was surely not on Kristiansen's mind at the time.
Nearly eight decades of Lego history is on display for those lucky enough to get to visit to what is essentially the company's official museum (see photo gallery below), housed in the company's original building in Billund. And while Lego twice lost its factory to fire--the second time forcing its leaders to abandon making wooden toys--it's still possible to get a sense of what the company was about in its earliest days.
The history of Lego is really the history of the Kristiansen family. Privately run, the company was helmed by Kristiansens for three generations. It has only recently taken on its first nonfamily CEO. All told, it has 9,900 employees, and just a single brand. But of course, as far as most people are concerned, the real history of the company goes back only as far as those first plastic bricks.
For years after the original hollow bricks came out, Lego tried to find a way to get them to stick together better. While the bricks did OK if they were stacked directly on top of each other, they weren't all that stable, and you couldn't have them stacked in any unusual ways. In 1957, the company finally figured out that with the three little tubes on the inside, the bricks would lock together perfectly, and could be stacked in a million different ways.
Actually, my host told me, it's a lot more. If you have six 2x4 Lego bricks of the same color, they can be stacked 915,103,765 different ways. We didn't have time to try them all. (LOL)
Posted in: Lego,Toys
