A Better Way To Understand LEGO Stores

Lego bricks. Creativity. Childhood. They go together like Mickey Mouse and Disney, wizards and Harry Potter. Lego has been a part of childhood for more than three generations. Nearly everybody under 50 has played with one of these building blocks of imagination. There's absolutely no telling how many engineers and scientists were spawned by these plastic building blocks.

Lego is synonymous with plastic toy bricks that may be quickly changed into buildings, space ships, cars, boats, trains as well as a a lot of other toys. The key is that the infant gets to assemble the toy from the basic building blocks. Each toy can be assembled, disassembled and reassembled in enough new shapes and forms to tickle the imagination and stretch the youngster's creativity.

Today, Lego is significantly more that the simple blocks invented in 1949. It's toys, theme parks, movies, and CDs. Lego building blocks and other products are distributed all over the world. These tiny plastic bricks and also the company they have built, are a phenomenon with a success as remarkable as Mickey Mouse.

Where did Lego Duplo come from and the way did it get to be such an important tool for childhood creativity?

Our story begins in Billund, Denmark. It really is 1932. Master carpenter and joiner Ole Kirk Kristiansen opened a new business. His little company makes stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys. He has just six employees. Nobody could have imagined, but Lego and the little building blocks of imagination had just been born.

2 years later, Kristiansen adopted the name Lego as a brand name for his toys. The name is derived from the Danish words "leg godt," which mean "play well." Ironically, he later discovered that Lego in Latin means "I put together." Lego has truly come to mean "put together" and "play well" in practically any language. Lately, all of the company's toys were being made from wood.

In 1942, the Lego factory burned to the ground. Kristiansen rebuilt.

In 1947, the Lego Company became the first company in Denmark to buy an injection-molding machine. It began making plastic toy dolls and other toys. The famous bricks were yet to be invented.

It was not until 1949 that the Lego company introduced the Automatic Binding Brick, just a little plastic brick, some with four studs and some with eight. In recent years, the company was producing about 200 different plastic toys. The Automatic Binding Brick was sold exclusively in Denmark.

By 1950, plastic toys became half of the business's business. Ole Kirk's son, Godtfred Kirk, who had worked in the company since age 12, was appointed junior vice president at age 30.

In 1954, Godtfred Kirk made a trip to England to meet with a purchasing agent. The purchasing agent told Kristiansen that he thought the Automatic Binding Bricks lacked an idea and system. Godtfred returned to Denmark. The Lego System was developed.
The next year, Godtfred introduced the Lego System at a toy fair in Germany. It was the very first time it was introduced outside of Denmark. The final results were disappointing. Kristiansen did not quit. Later that year, the Lego System Play was developed. It was an improved system for the Lego bricks. The Lego System Play was exported to Sweden, where it sold well.

In 1959, Lego bricks and the Lego System were introduced in Great Britain, France, and Belgium.

It was not until 1961 that Lego bricks were first marketed in the USA and Canada. They were an immediate hit and distribution across the globe continued. By the end of that decade, 843 people in Billund worked for the Lego company. The first Legoland film was produced. In 1969, the DUPLO system for children under age five was introduced.

By 1970, there have been almost 1,000 employees at the plant in Billund.

In 1980, the Educational Products Department was established. The DUPLO Rabbit logo was introduced and a survey established that 70 percent of all Western European families with children under age 14 had Lego in their home.

As 1990 unfolded, the Lego Group had become one of the world's 10 largest toy manufacturers as well as the only toy company of that size in Europe. The others were in Japan and also the United States of America More than one million people visited the LEGOLAND theme park and Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen celebrated his 70th birthday. Lego Publishing was renamed Lego Licensing and also the LEGOLAND Band issued an LP.

With the beginning of the new century, LEGO continues to increase. It has also continued to remain a family owned company. These days, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the grandson of Ole Kirk, runs the company.

Lego bricks are more than just building blocks. They're learning toys. They build on favorite themes and children's stories and enable the child to exercise his or her own imagination and creativity. Offshoots of the fundamental brick include such toys as Lego Robotics, Star Wars Lego, Harry Potter Legos and lots of other building toys and kids' games. It's truly amazing what a couple of bricks as well as a full measure of imagination will produce.