The Development Of Lego Company

The LEGO company is nowadays known to millions of people around the world mostly for the bricks that for many generations have inspired the imagination of children and adults. The development of LEGO is universally recognized as one of the greatest Danish management successes transforming and realizing an idea until it becomes a contemporary icon. The idea and the essence of LEGO are represented by the notion of good play aiming to create a toy that stimulates as much as possible the imagination, the creativity and the desire to build of children. The bricks proved to be the best way to achieve it. Yet the idea was born, out of pure necessity, in the mind of a master carpenter in a village in Billund, during the agricultural crisis of the early thirties.

Ole Kirk Kristiansen was one of ten children of a poor family born in a small village in the south Jutland. Soon after finishing school, as many other boys of his age he started working as a carpenter in quality of apprentice for his older brother. At the time he obtained his certificate, the carpentry sector was saturated and Ole Kirk was obliged to move abroad to find a job, first in Germany and later in Norway. In 1916 after his marriage with Kirstine Sorensen, they decided to move back to Billund where thanks to its savings he bought the Billund Maskinsnedkeri og Tømreforretning, the Billund Carpentry Shop and Lumberyard that he used as home and place to work. Billund is located in the center of the Jutland Peninsula, a small village populated with big and medium agricultural farms for which Ole Kirk used to build houses and furniture.

Soon after his return to the region, Europe and our specific case Denmark were hit by the bank crisis of 1929, provoking a collapse in the agricultural production that caused farmers to sell their products at a unreasonable price. The crisis generated serious repercussions on Ole Kirk’s business since farmer represented his main customers. Therefore, he had cope with a slow-down in the demand of furniture and building of houses that almost cost him bankruptcy and eventually in 1932 to save what was remaining of its company he had to fire all his employees. At that time the country was guided by a social democratic government that imposed bans and raised customs barriers on a number of products in order to protect Danish industry and to save jobs.