THE LEGO they are among the most popular, widespread and recognizable products in the world. They are so rooted in contemporary culture that they are known to everyone, from the smallest to the largest, from collectors to those who, despite appreciating them, have never owned one. But how long have they been around? When did the first LEGO ever come out?
The history of LEGO begins almost a century ago, more precisely in Denmark in 1932, in Ole Kirk Christiansen’s woodworking shop. Initially dedicated to producing furniture, the carpenter soon dedicated himself to making wooden toys such as cars, trucks, houses and piggy-shaped piggy banks. The inspiration came from observing miniatures of his own furniture which he used as design aids. Determined to follow this new path, in 1934 he named his business “LEGO” contracting the words “leg godt”which in Italian can be translated as “plays well”.
However, the turning point came after the Second World War, more precisely in 1947, when injection molding became widespread in Denmark, an industrial production process in which a plastic material is melted and then injected into a mold to make it solidify in the desired shape. After purchasing a machine suitable for the purpose, Christiansen and his son Gotfred begin to make plastic toys, but only in 1949 they received enlightenment. Inspired by the Kiddicraft bricks invented by Hilary Page in 1939 and patented in the United Kingdom in 1940, the two created the Automatic Binding Bricks, the ancestors of LEGO as we know them today. Admire them in all their immature splendor in this vintage photo!
The Automatic Binding Bricks were produced with Cellulose Acetate and were sold in packs including 142 pieces of different shapes and colours. Buyers could give free rein to their imagination, since they were not sold in the form of a set as is the case today, although inside each box there was a brochure with some ideas to replicate.
At the beginning of the 1950s LEGO entered the international market, starting from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. In 1954, drawing inspiration from a conversation with an overseas buyer, Godtfred Christiansen conceived the sets. Thus, in 1955, i products from the Town Plan line (the first LEGO sets we remember), which replicate the buildings of a small town: the first to hit the market was the garage with the automatic door, which was followed by the Esso Station, the car showroom, the fire station, church and many other small buildings.
In 1959 the versatility and blocking capacity of the bricks was improved by adding circular holes on the bottom (still present today), while in 1963 ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) replaced Cellulose Acetate as the material for making the bricks. small bricks. The rest is history!
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