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The Story of the LEGO Brick

From the very earliest times in human history, it has been a popular pastime to play with creative materials - sand, clay, water and paints. Later, there were wooden blocks - and later still, in the 20th century, construction toys made their appearance. They were made of rubber, wood, clay, metal and bakelite and other synthetic materials. In 1932, the LEGO Company in Denmark began making high quality wooden toys - including stacking and building bricks.

In 1947, in addition to producing wooden toys, the company began manufacturing plastic toys: dolls, motor cars, animals, babies' rattles - and the familiar building bricks also began to appear in plastic.

The LEGO Brick

In 1949, something of consequence - but relatively unnoticed - occurred in Billund: plastic building components were launched under the name "Automatic Binding Bricks" (in post-war Denmark many products were given English names). These two components had studs on the top. They could be built on top of one another, but with very little clutching power. They were inspired by two plastic building bricks made by the British firm, Kiddicraft, which sold them only in Britain.

With the cooperation of a tooling works in Copenhagen, the design of the brick was modified and moulds were made. The modifications in relation to the Kiddicraft bricks included altering round corners to make them sharp and changing inches to cm and mm, which altered the size of the brick by approx. 0.1 mm from the Kiddicraft brick. In addition, the studs on the bricks were flattened on top. The bricks which were marketed in Denmark had four studs or eight studs. Their name was later changed to "LEGO Mursten" ("LEGO Building Bricks"). They are the bricks we usually refer to as "a rather primitive forerunner of the LEGO Brick proper dating from 1958". In the LEGO range of the early 1950´s, which comprised about 200 wooden and plastic products, LEGO Building Bricks attracted only little attention. In fact, they did not sell well - generally speaking, all they could be used for were building simple walls and houses.

LEGO System of Play

It was not until 1954 that the Billund company realised that its future could well lie in the development of LEGO Building Bricks. The Danish toy trade was looking for products offering a strong concept and system. The idea captured the attention of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen.

The LEGO Building Brick, which now accounted for a modest 5-10% of the company's sales, was the only product in the existing range that could be developed into a system and mass-produced. The company launched a major development project, headed by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. Within a year (in 1955), it was able to introduce in Denmark what it called "The LEGO System of Play", based on small cars, the LEGO Building Brick and something resembling the flat baseplates we know today. The system was developed over the next few years - and in January 1958, something rather revolutionary happened.

Inventing the Tubes

LEGO Bricks were refined and developed over a period of years. The work focused on improving clutching power. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's solution to the problem was to invent the now familiar tubes inside what had previously been hollow bricks.

These tubes ensured really strong clutching power, stability - and new possibilities for other combinations. It was now possible for six 8-stud bricks (of the same colour) to be combined in almost 103 million ways! This had been impossible with the tubeless LEGO Brick, which now gave way to a better and more interesting product (but the older bricks could still be used with their new "cousins").

The invention of the tubes inside the LEGO Brick led to the LEGO patent (basic patent), which Godtfred Kirk Christiansen applied for in 1958. He was granted the patent in Denmark and in a number of other countries, including Great Britain (1961), and the brick the company now produced was essentially identical to the LEGO Brick sold today.

Utilising an Idea

After launching the LEGO Brick in 1949, the company - thanks to its "LEGO System of Play" in 1955 and its tubes in 1958 - had a unique product on which to base its future development. In 1963, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen published the now well-known 10 characteristics for an ideal LEGO product of the future:

  • unlimited play potential
  • for girls, for boys
  • fun for every age
  • year-round play
  • healthy and quiet play
  • long hours of play
  • imagination, creativity, development
  • the more LEGO , the greater its value
  • extra sets available
  • quality in every detail

The most remarkable aspect of the LEGO story has been the ability of the Group's employees - for many years with the close involvement of Godtfred Kirk Christiansen - to visualize and use the product idea ... to make constant improvements to the basic idea ... to continuously develop new elements and play themes ... and to broaden the scope of the company's product range.

LEGO DUPLO Bricks, launched internationally in 1969, are one of the most noteworthy examples of this process. LEGO DUPLO Bricks are eight times the size of LEGO Bricks - every dimension is multiplied by two. A stroke of technical genius allows LEGO DUPLO Bricks and LEGO Bricks to be linked together in the same model - the LEGO DUPLO studs are hollowed out to act as tight sleeves around the internal tubes of LEGO Bricks.

© 1997 The LEGO Group
TM and ® indicate trademarks of the LEGO Group
Page updated February 17, 1997.
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