In 1932, carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen founded his company in Billund, Denmark with the goal of promoting inventive play and ingenuity in children. He started by making stepladders. However, the Great Depression forced him into an adaptable business model. He shifted his focus to manufacturing toys, and in doing so he established one of the most popular brands in the history of the world.
Christiansen was a thinker who was progressive and quick to adopt new materials and technologies. In 1947, he was the first company to acquire a plastics injection molding machine in the world. This significantly boosted the capabilities and range of Lego products. The machine also allowed him to create a prototype that would eventually become an iconic Lego brick. The bricks came with pegs at the top and hollow bottoms that interlocked with each one another, allowing children to build complex structures that went beyond those possible with the wooden blocks of previous generations.
The 1950s was a time that saw the business expand. Kjeld Kirk Christiansen, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen’s daughter, joined the management team and started modernizing the manufacturing techniques of the company. The expansion included the launch a line dollhouses, furnishings and individual Minifigures. In 1979, the company expanded into space by introducing sets of astronaut minifigures and rockets, lunar rovers and spaceships and also into the medieval world with a castle theme.
In 1990, the company launched three Model Team Sets that were designed for advanced builder. These sets introduced tiny parts like gears, axles, and levers. They also offered a degree of realism and accuracy that was unparalleled in the Lego series https://lego-x.com/2019/10/30/today-lego-fan-tomorrow-it-architect-and-vdr-provider/ at the time.