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Ole Kirk Christiansen, born in 1891, was a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. He began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934 he named his company "Lego" originating from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play-well".
By 1947 Lego expanded its production to plastic toys and in 1949 Lego started manufacturing the now famous interlocking bricks. They called them "Automatic Binding Bricks". The original design was based on the patent of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks. However Ole Kirk discovered that the quality of the locking mechanist was not as good as was hoping for. Lego then modified the design and started producing the blocks.
In 1954 Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the son of Ole Kirk became the junior managing director of the Lego Group. He then realised the potential of the LEGO systems and pointed out its weaknesses at the time. He believed that the current systems were not versatile enough and the more overseas presence was required for the company. At 1:58pm on January 28, 1958 the modern Lego brick was patented. It took another 5 years to find a suitable material to produce the bricks from. All bricks from 1958 design are still compatible with current ones today. |
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