Friday 13 April 2012

L is for LEGO

Leg godt is Danish and translates to "Play Well"

In 1932 Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys, by 1934 after average success he named his company LEGO, as an abrieviated form of leg godt. It wasn't until 1949 that the company utilised injection moulding machines to start producing plastic "Automatic Binding Bricks" the earliest form of what we now refer to generally as, Lego blocks.



Ole Kirk Christiansen started his company with a motto "det bedste er ikke for godt" which means the best is never too good and it is still their motto today.

Given a world population of 6 billion, it is said that if you divided all the Lego bricks ever made EVERYONE on the planet would get 62 each. It is also said that Lego is the worlds most prolific tyre manufacturer, its factories turn out 306million tyres per annum (admittedly very small tyres) Current annual production of blocks is up to approximately 36 Billion. That's a whopping 1104 every single second

As a child I loved building with Lego, I had stacks of the stuff. My dream job would be a Lego designer but I think I am too late in my life to pull that one off now. I always wanted to go to Denmark to visit Legoland but never got the chance. I have however taken the opportunity to go to Legoland in Windsor (UK) with my own kids. It was in 2006 and here is what we saw.




 




Yes all the displays are made from individual Lego bricks, yes it is a dream job but I guess even the Lego builders have bad days too.


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