The company built on bricks
The history of LEGO published in Italy: a story of culture, innovation and entrepreneurship
A company built with plastic bricks: LEGO. The history of LEGO is interesting and, in its own way, exemplary. A story built on productive ingenuity, family tenacity, great innovation and imagination. It’s all there in “The LEGO Story. How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination” written by Jens Andersen and just published in Italy.
While it’s true that today LEGO is a symbol for children and adults all over the world, and that its colourful bricks are much more than just a toy, it’s also true that few people know the history of this global company that began in a carpentry workshop. According to the book, it all began in 1916, in a carpentry workshop in the Danish countryside. Ole Kirk Kristiansen works there: a young craftsman who builds wooden houses for local farmers. As a small businessman, Kristiansen did not have much luck in his early days and was in danger of going out of business through the Great Depression. However, Kristiansen’s entrepreneurial ingenuity and stubbornness led him to change his product type, still made of wood, but smaller: miniature furniture and toys, toy cars, ducks, yo-yos. In 1934, LEGO was officially born, its name an abbreviation of a Danish expression meaning “play well”. But the company was still not what it is today. The breakthrough came after the war, when Kristiansen realised the potential of plastic and invented a revolutionary system for assembling bricks. From that moment on, expansion was almost continuous.
The human and business history of LEGO and the Kristiansen family is told by Andersen in some 400 enlightening pages, divided into ten chapters from the 1920s to the post-2010 period. Each chapter covers a specific period: so we go from the age of carpentry to the age of war and the invention of the stacking brick “system”, from the period of great expansion to the period of “inertia” up to the present day.
The book really does read like an adventure story, but it includes a description of a journey of a business that can teach a lot. And so the author warns in the opening pages: “This is not a classic business book, but a cultural history and biography of three generations of the Kristiansen family, who founded LEGO and built it into the company we know today.”. Yes, culture and humanity, the keys to succeeding.
LEGO. How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination
Jens Andersen
Salani, 2024
The history of LEGO published in Italy: a story of culture, innovation and entrepreneurship
A company built with plastic bricks: LEGO. The history of LEGO is interesting and, in its own way, exemplary. A story built on productive ingenuity, family tenacity, great innovation and imagination. It’s all there in “The LEGO Story. How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination” written by Jens Andersen and just published in Italy.
While it’s true that today LEGO is a symbol for children and adults all over the world, and that its colourful bricks are much more than just a toy, it’s also true that few people know the history of this global company that began in a carpentry workshop. According to the book, it all began in 1916, in a carpentry workshop in the Danish countryside. Ole Kirk Kristiansen works there: a young craftsman who builds wooden houses for local farmers. As a small businessman, Kristiansen did not have much luck in his early days and was in danger of going out of business through the Great Depression. However, Kristiansen’s entrepreneurial ingenuity and stubbornness led him to change his product type, still made of wood, but smaller: miniature furniture and toys, toy cars, ducks, yo-yos. In 1934, LEGO was officially born, its name an abbreviation of a Danish expression meaning “play well”. But the company was still not what it is today. The breakthrough came after the war, when Kristiansen realised the potential of plastic and invented a revolutionary system for assembling bricks. From that moment on, expansion was almost continuous.
The human and business history of LEGO and the Kristiansen family is told by Andersen in some 400 enlightening pages, divided into ten chapters from the 1920s to the post-2010 period. Each chapter covers a specific period: so we go from the age of carpentry to the age of war and the invention of the stacking brick “system”, from the period of great expansion to the period of “inertia” up to the present day.
The book really does read like an adventure story, but it includes a description of a journey of a business that can teach a lot. And so the author warns in the opening pages: “This is not a classic business book, but a cultural history and biography of three generations of the Kristiansen family, who founded LEGO and built it into the company we know today.”. Yes, culture and humanity, the keys to succeeding.
LEGO. How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination
Jens Andersen
Salani, 2024