LEGO

Why it is renowned

The LEGO Group is one of the world's largest toy makers, and in the first half of 2015 it passed Mattel as the largest by revenue.¹² The brick was among the first toys taken into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York, in 1998, and several organisations named it Toy of the Century in 2000.¹³ LEGO runs more than a thousand LEGO Stores around the world, the largest on Leicester Square in London, and Legoland parks carry the name from Windsor to Nagoya.³

The story

Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a carpenter in Billund, founded the company in 1932 and made wooden toys; the name comes from the Danish "leg godt", play well.²³ Plastic toys followed in 1947, the first interlocking bricks in 1949, and the brick in its present form, with tubes inside, in 1958; since 1963 it has been moulded in ABS plastic.³² Design work is done at the headquarters in Billund, and moulding in Billund and in Hungary, Mexico and China, among other sites.³ The company is still owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family.²¹

What to know it by

• Wooden duck1932One of the first wooden toys from the Billund workshop
• LEGO brick1958The interlocking brick with tubes, still compatible