Lego house external blocks in Billund — Lego House, Billund. © 2022 Bedour Braker

These bricks, these bricks are everywhere
in my pantry and the green chair.
We’ve tried to sort them all by color…How they escape?
We pick them up and then, just then-It’s time to pick them up again!…

How do they multiply? It’s as if they’ve fallen from the sky!
But my boy’s mind’s for sure spinnin’, and he always is grinnin when I say, go ahead and play”.
and then perhaps, maybe, someday… I’ll be riding or flying or sleeping in a super invention created just by him !

OUCH!! I just stepped on a red one!

- by Jen Reyneri

Two years ago, I was asked to write a chapter for a book about city streets as public spaces. I chose two controversial streets located in the same neighbourhood. In the course of my investigations it was intelligible that each street was very exclusive for its own specific users. Not to go into further details, a question was pressing; how can we create a public space that is open and welcoming for everyone despite of their religion, colour, culture, or even their sexual orientation? When I asked the people involved in my research sample back then: “what would you think can transform a space from exclusivity to inclusivity? ” The majority said, “Just create a space where no one stares at you, or asks where do you come from, or what religion do you follow! Just create a space where it is all about shared activity, to be able to share the pleasure of being together in one space with no prejudices!”. I have been looking since then for an existing public space that fulfills those parameters, but with no success, until I went with my family to the Lego House in Billund last month, and there, I was genuinely impressed!

But first, let me tell you the backstories behind this place!

**Lego House, the mixer activity hall- Billund**

**People of different age groups, playing together with Lego**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

Can’t you find something more useful to do?!

“It has been a dream for me for many years to create a place that will give our visitors the ultimate LEGO experience. With LEGO House, we celebrate creativity and the strength of learning through play. When they play, children learn the basic skills that they need, such as creativity, collaboration and problem-solving abilities.”

-Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, third-generation Lego owner (2)

The Lego House is located in the centre of Billund in Denmark, where the famous Lego brick was developed, and I will not say invented!!(the explanation of that will come later in the article). Billund was a small village in the southern region of Denmark with only 300 residents in early 1930s. Reaching the 1950s, the number rose to 500, and during the 1970s the population increased rapidly to 2,065. (3) Now in 2022, around 6,725 residents live in the city. Tracking the history of Billund shows that one of the main reasons for this populous growth was actually due to the rapid expansions of Lego bricks since the mid-1960s. This fact alone paved the way for Billund to be celebrated in 2020 as the first child-friendly city in Denmark, and part of a global UNICEF network of cities from 40 countries.(1) The entrenched idea of this network is to create visionary world citizens who can learn through playing. A vision that coincides with Lego’s core four cornerstones; Creativity, Learning, Quality, and Caring.

**Lego House, The four stacking principles of Lego Group**

**Creativity, Quality, Learning, and Caring**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022, from the History Museum of Lego House***

The story of Lego bricks began with a young Danish carpenter called Ole Kirk Kristiansen who lived in Billund village with his four boys and wife in 1916. As an ambitious carpenter, at the age of 24 he managed to buy Billund Maskinsnedkeri (Billund Woodworking and Carpentry Shop) and quickly got involved in building many projects in the village like houses, farm facilities, and also the church of Billund. The village at that time was a small community consisting of a handful of small farms, a grocery shop, dairy, blacksmith, inn, mission hall, school, and a joinery factory. Among that local community Ole Kirk gained a reputation for being a skilled craftsman with a strong determination on perfecting the quality of his craftsmanship. (4) In 1924 his workshop and house were burnt to the ground when two of his youngest sons played with fire, and the need for a new house and carpentry space became pressing. Ole Kirk asked architect Jesper Jespersen to design the family’s new home, which actually still exists till today (photo below). (4) and that was the beginning of a new turn in Kristiansen’s business.

**The old House & the new house**

**My daughter sits at the porch of the original house of Ole Kirk Kristiansen,** **and looks towards the new Lego House.**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

“… I looked to the future with hope, but within two months my world was tumbling. There was a crisis in farming but as we owed our living to the smallholders and farmers, we were also affected. We were in a difficult time – but it was as well that we could not see what lay ahead. During the summer we were asked to make toys for Jens W. Olesen, Fredericia, and as we had no other work, we looked on it as a gift from God.” (5)

-In his memoir, Ole Kirk Kristiansen wrote about his struggles in 1932

In October 1929 the Wall Street Stockmarket in New York crashed and left its dramatic consequences on large parts of the wider Western world. Agriculture was one of the sectors that was hit hard after the United States and the United Kingdom forced restrictions on imports which brought the crisis directly to the Danish farming communities in 1930. Eventually, this global economic calamity had serious consequences on Kristiansen, since the majority of his customers are farmers and smallholders who could no longer afford to pay for his carpentry work. In 1931 after he sacked his last craftsman, he decided to focus on creating small toys for children, and asked his siblings for financial help to support him . “Can’t you find something more useful to do?”, obviously the idea did not appeal to his older brothers at that time since no one back then perceived making toys as a proper job to embrace. Kristiansen, however, as a persistent revolutionary businessman managed in 1932 to put the foundations of what is to become one of the world’s leading toy-making companies on a global scale. (5)

**First generation of Lego toys**

***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022, from the History Museum of Lego House***

The name, LEg GOdt

It was crucial for Ole Kirk to change the name of his new workshop to something that goes along with the new line of toys production. As a perfectionist who does everything well, his main goal was to create toys that encourage the children to joyfully play well, so he came up with the name Leg Godt (which means play well). At that time, his third child, Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen, was an active member in the company since the age of four, and he learned early on the values his father placed on his products (in the time between 1939-1940 while still being at school, Godtfred designed many new toys for the company). In 1942, just eighteen years after the first fire, a short circuit caused another fire, and both workshop and warehouse were burnt to the ground. At that time, Leg Godt was playing an important role in its city, where many members in Billund’s community where employed by Kristiansen, and it was important for that community back then to retain the jobs. With the help and financial support of family and employees, the first dedicated toy-factory was built at the same site of the old woodworking factory. By the end of the year production has resumed, and in 1943 the company was already employing 40 skilled craftsmen, which enabled the company to produce more quality toys for more children. (6) During the World War II (1939-45) it was hard to find proper quality of wood which Ole Kirk used for his toys, and the company went through some production difficulties until the war was over. After the Second World War new options to be used including plastic and technology where at offer for people like Kristiansen, which led him to invest in an expensive English-made plastic injection-molding machine. (6) This new machine was built in London by E.H. Windsor, and was brought to Billund in 1947, which marked the start of a new era in Leg Godt company (later named as LEGO). (7) The new technology and materials allowed the company to produce a new line of plastic bricks of identical sizes, hollow from the inside to be easily stacked on top of each other.

**The first generation of Lego bricks**

**The Automatic Binding Bricks were created in different sizes and different colors**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022, from the History Museum of Lego House***

The 1950s witnessed a new era for the company when Godtfred Kirk was appointed as the managing director of the company in 1957. Three years later, the factory was under fire again which forced the new director to calibrate between two difficult decisions: either to continue manufacturing their famous wooden toys, or to concentrate exclusively on the production of their new line of plastic bricks with their unlimited play potentials? On February 5, 1960 the fate of the company was changed, and the decision was made to focus solely on the plastic production of Lego bricks. (8)

“If we can conquer Germany, we can conquer the whole world!”

-Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen in the mid-1950s

Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen’s belief that conquering the German toy-market can allow the company to globally expand became a reality, and in the period between 1956-1958 the company was selling in Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Portugal in adition to Norway, Sweden and Iceland. (9)

“Wir bauen eine Stadt” , We are building a city

In an encounter between Godtfred and Troels Petersen (the appointed purchasing manager for Magasin du Nord’s toy department in Copenhagen), Petersen criticized the lack of systematization in the toys generally produced at that time. This conversation ignited a new idea in Godtfred’s mind. To him, children should not have to simply accept existing solutions, they need something to challenge their imagination and creativity again and again (One cannot help but notice that nowadays all the new sets are actually dictating on the children how to build it!!). One year later the company introduced their town plan theme that enabled children to create their own city where everything fits together. The concept of designing an eco-system of plastic bricks was introduced as LEGO System in Play, which was the beginning of endless building possibilities by LEGO. A large part of the success of the Lego town plan was due to the lifelike models of cars, roadways, windows, roofs, and policemen, and children were positively engaged with the whole new line in 1958. (6)

A brick is born

“Our idea has been to create a toy that develops the creative urge and joy of creation that are the driving forces in every human being”

- Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen (6)

The rapid global expansion of Lego, however, coincided with many complaints regarding the stability of the new bricks upon stacking. To solve this problem, an interlocking principle with tubes compatible with the studs on the top of the brick, made the bricks unique and offered unlimited building possibilities. On January 28, 1958, the modern Lego brick was born, and from this point on, it became a matter of getting the imagination going for endless creations. (6)

**The interlocking system- Lego brick**

**With the new (stud & tube) principle it is possible to combine six 2x4 bricks in 915.103.765 different ways**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022 from the Lego History museum at the Lego House***

Was the Lego brick a stolen idea!

Around the time when Ole Kirk was creating his wooden toys in the 1930s, another toy maker in England called Hilary Fisher Page was busy trying to get his toy business going while struggling with financial problems. In 1932 Page founded his toy company Kiddicraft and created many wooden toys that focused on enhancing the fine-motor skills of the children. He was however always frustrated with the quality of the painted wooden surfaces which made him start trialing plastic as a new material for toys. Among the toys Kiddicraft produced for the little hands was a hollow brick in fixed sizes and different colours as "Self-Locking Building Bricks". At that times Page used a new English-made molding machine to produce his plastic bricks ( the same that Kristiansen brought in 1947 to Billund), he then became one of the pioneers in using plastic as a new manufacturing medium for children’s toys. (10)

The Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick sets were first marketed in 1947, and were held in place by studs on the top, in addition to slits on one side that allowed panel-like doors, windows or cards to be inserted. This was later followed by patents for the side slits in 1949 and another for the base-plate in 1952. Page’s designs were featured in exhibits at the Brighton Toy, Model Museum, and in Earl's Court Toy Fair. (11)

When Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred went to London in 1947 to examine the new molding machine that can produce proper plastic toys, the British supplier of the first injection moulding machine brought their attention to the new Kiddicraft brick. Both have examined a sample, and possibly drawings of the brick, and in 1949 Ole Kirk modified the kiddicraft brick and marketed his own version The Automatic Binding Brick, which became the Lego brick in 1953. (11) Unfortunately Hilary Fisher Page took his own life in 1957 due to financial troubles, and his widow and daughters stated later that Page was unaware of the Lego bricks at the time.

It is worth mentioning that LEGO acknowledges Kiddicraft as the origin of their bricks on their history website. They say that they contacted Kiddicraft in the late 1950s to ask them if they would object to the LEGO brick, and Kiddicraft didn't.

**The original Brick by Kiddicraft**

The interlocking plastic building brick was Invented by Hilary Fisher Page and patented in 1939 (British patent no. 529580). Later on copied almost exactly the same by LEGO company developing it into the modern Lego brick
***Photo provided to Wikimedia commons by*** ***hilarypagetoys.com***

Lego Land

The Lego Model building caught the public eye and inspired everyone from schoolchildren to retailers from everywhere to huddle in Billund. People queued to see the Lego exhibitions of finished models, by the mid-1960s the company was receiving circa 20,000 visitors a year. (12) Inspired by this massive interest in visiting the Lego model department, Godtfred Kirk planned an outdoor exhibition space to display Lego models which later became what we know nowadays as Legoland. With the help of his team, Godtfred transformed a chosen land in Billund, not far from their factory into a mini city with different topographies and landscapes. At the heart of this plot, him and his team created a miniature kingdom built with millions of Lego Bricks, stretched on different landscapes and buildings, and represented parts of Denmark, as well as some iconic international landmarks. In addition to that, thousands of Lego bricks were on offer for children and adults to play with (possibly the first idea leading to the Lego house). Their model builder Dagny Holm (a realtive to the Kristiansen family) and her team created a large Lego train, a puppet theatre, a driving school with clear educational purposes. In its first season in 1968, the park attracted 625,000 visitors while the initial estimates were for “only” half that number. (12)

Collaborating with MIT, the new vision

In 1979, third generation Lego owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen became CEO of the Lego Group. He brought with him a lot of new ideas that basically revolved around Lego as a play and learning material more than just a construction toy. In 1980 an educational division of Lego was named Lego Institutional Department which served in that direction. This department handled all products that dealt with pre-school, elementary and middle school stages. (13) This line of thought led Kjeld Kirk to collaborate with professor Seymour Papert from (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) MIT in 1984. This collaboration resulted in creating Lego that helps children to learn through experimentation, and that was the birth of Lego Technic Control in 1987. Lego Technic was followed by Mindstorms Lego in 1999 as part of the Lego Education product portfolio giving students a hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) solution. (13) (this collaboration with MIT is still running till today). In addition to that successful collaboration, Lego has also established a new line that targets educators at school since 2021. The objective of this line is to create an interactive professional development program that will eventually build confidence and competence in delivering hands-on STEAM learning (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) with LEGO Education. It mainly helps to embrace and nurture curious minds, confident storytellers, social skills, creativity, problem solvers and coding, and above all imagination. This is to be achieved through four core categories: Pedagogy, 21st Century Skills, Classroom Management, and of course the STEAM Concepts.

“As educators, we must build confidence in ourselves before we can build confidence in our students. LEGO Education Professional Development offers any educator the opportunity to observe and learn from experienced teachers from anywhere. I can brush up on teaching techniques or coding during my lunch break or even from the comfort of my couch. The engaging and relevant courses not only develop teaching skills, but also build confidence using real-world classroom examples and best practices,”

-Jennifer Rodabaugh, STEAM Lab Teacher, Picadome Elementary in Lexington, Kentucky

Lego is a mindset, not a toy!

‘The genius of Lego is that it isn’t a toy – it’s more like a tool. It gives you the ability to create your own world’

-Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels, Architect

Lego has come a long way over the past almost 90 years, from a small carpenter’s workshop to a modern global enterprise that is now one of the world’s largest manufacturers of toys. It is even, perhaps, one of the only modern businesses that has created a product meant to be passed down from generation to generation. With the desire to share the company's history and values that evolved along the years, whilst also inspiring visitors to play and interact with Lego bricks, Kjeld Kirk decided to build a space that offers the maximum joy of playing and learning with Lego (just as Godtfred Kirk did when he created LegoLand). His idea was to establish a communal urban space to the local community and the international visitors at the same time to exemplify the principles of the danish Lego. The choice of the architect fell on the Danish architect, Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (BIG).

The main concept of BIG’s design was to create an architectural landmark as a significant step towards Billund’s goal to become the Capital for Children. The construction of a 12,000 sq.m Lego House commenced in 2014, replacing the former City Hall building. (15) This 23 meter high building is conceived as an urban space as much as an experience centre right in the heart of Billund, . 21 overlapping blocks are placed like individual buildings, framing a 2,000 sq.m Lego square that is illuminated through the cracks and gaps between those volumes. (15)

“My vision with this house is to create the ultimate Lego experience which truly unfolds the endless possibilities there are with our bricks and our Lego system of play and have all these experiences in one house, the home of the brick” (14)

-Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, 2017

This Lego House can be experienced as a curated flow from one space to the next in a continuous movement. It can also be perceived as parallel worlds of complete autonomy, while each space is designed and used independently. The main space is connected with the different zones by the Tree of Creativity (framed by a spiral staircase). This masterpiece is an impressive and colourful installation built from 3.5 million Lego pieces that took four months to build. The main space of the House functions as an indoor plaza with elevators, restaurants, cafes and a gift shop. (2)

**Tree of Creativity, Lego House-Billund**

**The main Lego masterpiece that binds all spaces together.**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

Above the plaza, a cluster of galleries overlap to create a continuous sequence of exhibitions. The first and second floors include four Play Zones arranged by color (very helpful for way-finding) and programmed with activities that represent a certain aspect for child's learning: red is creative, blue is cognitive, green is social, and yellow is emotional. Each colour zone has a number of activities that encourage visitors of all ages to play. Multiple spaces have access to an outdoor space that can be used to expand the Lego experience to the outside and connect it to the surrounding city fabric. (2)

**The Creative Red Play-Zone**

**Designed to encourage creative building through independent play. A rainbow Lego waterfall is the centre piece.**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

**The Emotional Yellow Play-Zone**

Designed to develop understanding, expression and regulation of emotions. It is a space where visitors (of all ages) can build confidence and flex emotional competences through creations that are scanned in and appear on screens.
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

**The Cognitive Blue Play-Zone & The Social Green Play-Zone**

The Blue zone is designed to develop problem solving skills, and cognitive memory, while the green zone is designed to develop social competences, by letting the visitors direct their own movies in Story Lab within several stations.
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

The top of the building is crowned by the Masterpiece Gallery, a collection of Lego fans’ beloved creations that pay tribute to this big community. The Masterpiece Gallery is made of the iconic 2x4 Lego brick and showcases art beneath eight circular skylights that resemble the studs of the brick. Above the Masterpiece Gallery, visitors can get a 360° panoramic view of the city. Some of the rooftops can be accessed via pixelated public staircases that double as informal auditoria for people watching or seating for performances.

**The Masterpiece Gallery**

**This gallery showcases original works from the hands of creative talents. The detail and height of the models are breathtaking.**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

**Skylights studs in the Masterpiece Gallery**

**Magnificent creations of big dinosaurs build with Lego bricks**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

**360° panoramic view of the city**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

In the basement, The Vault, is located underneath Lego Square, where children and AFoLs (Adult Fans of LEGO) witness the first editions of several Lego sets. It is also where The History Collection presents an archival immersion into the Lego company and its story.

**The Vault**

**A timeline of Lego’s evolution throughout history. Alongside information of model examples of Lego and toys that were available to purchase at that time.**
***Photo: Bedour Braker, 2022***

“The Lego House will show the past, present and future of the Lego idea and I am certain it will be a fantastic place, where Lego fans of all ages and their families and friends will get a wide range of unique Lego experiences. It is our belief that Lego play fosters innovative thinking, and the Lego House gives us an opportunity to make it very tangible what Lego play offers and how it stimulates children’s creativity and learning.”

-Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, 3rd generation Lego owner

Has Lego deviated from its track?

I was watching my son opening his new birthday Lego set while writing this article. I could not help but think that he was dictated on how to build this new spaceship. Unlike the traditional Lego bricks mission, my son was not given the chance to explore on his own how to use the different parts and pieces to create the spaceship. But wasn’t Lego originally based on promoting imagination and not to stifle it ? I find that Lego boxes nowadays tell our children what to think, while actually implanting consumerism values that, in many cases, risk increasing pressure on us parents as well as our children. For many years, Lego was a blind-buy toy by us parents for our children, because most of us have played with it as children, but it is now exploiting our trust by putting profit above their core principles of real ‘play well’ from which it has once originated: Creativity, Learning, Quality, and Caring.

Child development specialist, Sue Palmer also wrote on how Lego increasingly churns out lucrative but unimaginative lines of “must-have” sets to promote new movies, games and videos. (18) So while Lego’s change in attitude meant it rose this year to become the world’s biggest toy company, it actually comes at a great cost to children.(18)

Speaking of profit and consumerism values, it is not a secret that Lego at some point was even partnering with Shell company, who is embroiled on the wrong side of the struggle to limit global warming and prevent its worst impacts. And despite Lego being a big advocate for healthy child-development in a healthy environmentally-aware world, to me this kind of collaborations comes across as hypocritical, and even raises questions about Lego’s responsibility to protect our children from prejudicial marketing twists.

This all I did not feel when I went to Lego House with my family, because there, one can only find loose Lego bricks everywhere with no instructions. Everyone is just wandering around, finding pieces and building something, and that is why I think it really resembles the core principles of Lego that were once created by Ole Kirk Kristiansen.

An interactive space for everyone

Guests of all ages can have an immersive and interactive experience. They are given the chance to express their imagination through their creations in Lego House, and also to be challenged by meeting other builders from all over the world. The simplicity of Lego House makes it a good public space that is accessible for everyone who is an avid Lego fan and supporter, albeit with tickets to enter the different activity areas. The main plaza with its shop, restaurants is accessible for free.

What I find brilliant about that House is the successful targeting of all senses, as well as creating several opportunities for those of us with sensory or physical disabilities to use smell, sound, and touch and enhance their individual experience. In that sense, Lego House has proven to be one of the main catalysts in shaping the community ties within Billund through creating a welcoming milieu for interaction and exchange of ideas. Something that might, eventually, impact the quality of the urban environment of Billund itself later on. But isn’t it according to the United Nations Program for Human Settlements (The Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance, 2000), that inclusive cities are the “mediums where all people, regardless of their economic condition, gender, age, ethnicity or religion, can participate productively in all the opportunities that cities offer.” ?? (17) Well, in that sense, I daresay, that Lego House acts as an inclusive miniature city that is open for everyone, regardless of all of the parameters that are just mentioned. Everyone who chooses to go there, enjoys just being there. Pure play and genuine exchange of laughter while creating new compositions is what one experiences in that public space. Lego House allows for a healthy public life where unplanned and spontaneous social interactions can occur on all platforms.

The house provides safety and choice to people while moving through its spaces, and when I think back of that chapter I wrote two years ago about that equitable public space. A space that can stimulate people through creativity while promoting of equitable, healthy and committed communities, the image of Lego House jumps into my mind.

Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen once dreamed of children shaping their cities through playing with Lego, and in fact Lego has shaped the city of Billund and put it into the map as the Capital for future generations to come.

For more visual documentations, please have a look at those three useful links below

The story of Lego- Short movie by LEGO group

Construction of Lego House in Billund- Short movie, 2021

Lego to launch sustainable bricks made from sugar cane- short movie by Dezeen, Mar 5, 2018

An inspiring video on the first young man to build a fully functioning arm- Youtube short movie