SUNDAY, MARCH 2 9 , 2 0 0 9 PAGE 1 3 Clockwise from left: A 4m model of the Trump International Hotel and Tower Dubai made of Lego blocks sits on display in New York last summer; a Lego motorized bulldozer; Zohar Singer, 4, pauses for an ice cream in the Piccadilly Circus model at Legoland in Windsor, England. PHOTOS: BLOOMBERG Never mind the recession — Lego is now so popular that there are 62 little colored blocks for every person on the planet. Yet only five years ago, this family business was on the brink of ruin. How did Lego put itself back together again? BY JOn HenLey THE GUARDIAN, BILLUND, DENMARK t’s quite easy, wandering round over Christmas. That is on display in or play well. (It can also be construed patented the studs-and-tubes after several years of increasingly How to stay there, though, amid the small town of Billund, to start Billund, too. to mean “I put together” in Latin.) mechanism that made the system heavy losses, in January 2004 the the combined onslaught of PlayStation I believing in the existence of a Charlotte Simonsen, the company’s At that stage he and his half-dozen stable in January 1958. A toy that company reported a record deficit and Xbox and Nintendo? It won’t be Lego god. You can’t help but feel a spokeswoman, says more than 400 employees turned out brightly colored grasps simply, brilliantly even, what of US$205 million. Crippling debts easy. Nipper says Lego is confident master intelligence is at work here — million people will play with Lego this wooden cars, fire engines, pull- millions of children (and their parents) amounted to nearly US$1 billion. children will continue to play with the place is so manifestly wholesome, year. After 50-odd years of production, along chickens and quacking ducks. want, that today sells seven sets a There was fevered speculation physical toys, although the company the street plan so well ordered, the there are apparently 62 Lego bricks Christiansen was smart: when a 1930s second and has twice been named Toy that the Christiansen family (now, is active in the world of virtual play: pavements so tidy. Unostentatious for every man, woman and child yo-yo craze died, he sawed his stock of the Century, was born. confusingly, spelled Kristiansen) an independent partner develops and automobiles proceed slowly along on the planet. And most of us, I’d in half. Each yo-yo made two wheels It would be nice to say Lego hasn’t would be forced to flog it, or large markets successful console games all-but-empty roads, stopping politely imagine, would say we felt pretty for a toy truck. looked back since, but it wouldn’t parts of it, to some all-American, based on Lego’s Star Wars and for pedestrians nowhere near a warmly towards these little chunks Quality was the watchword. Det be true. At first, it did seem as if the plastic-fantastic interloper such as Indiana Jones ranges, and Lego itself zebra crossing. A jovial red-and- of injection-molded acrylonitrile beste er ikke for godt was his motto, company could do no wrong. In 1962, Mattel. All Denmark mourned. will be launching a children’s MMOG yellow Lego giant points towards the butadiene styrene. Some would go or (roughly), Not even the best is good it expanded fast and furiously into Instead, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Ole — massively multiplayer online game town center; huge colored bricks lie considerably further. Lego reckons enough. Once, when his son Godtfred, Sweden, Belgium, France, the UK Kirk’s grandson, took a deep breath — called Lego Universe next year. scattered as if awaiting deployment it has maybe 250,000 Afols, or Adult who had worked in the factory since and the US. The first Legoland, in and appointed a 36-year-old former Its ultimate goal, though, is in some exemplary new civic amenity Fans of Lego, around the globe. he was 12 and would eventually take it Billund, opened in 1968, drawing an McKinsey’s management consultant somehow to integrate physical and (except that, being Denmark, it’s not They gather for mammoth week-long over, boasted that he had saved money unprecedented 625,000 visitors in its called Jorgen Vig Knudstorp to virtual play. It is part of the way there: immediately apparent what else the conventions with names such as by applying only two coats of varnish inaugural summer to somewhere even dismantle Lego’s sprawling house the Web site factory.lego.com allows town might need). BrickFest, and vie with each other to to a batch of toy ducks rather than the the locals concede is quite a long way brick by brick, then put it back you to download simple 3D design I half-expect to be plucked from build the World’s Largest Lego Boat usual three, Christiansen made him go from anywhere. together again. Assets, including the software, create a Lego toy online, then the pavement, brushed up a bit and (4.4m long; 300,000 bricks), construct back and rectify his error, through the To Lego City were added Lego Legoland theme parks, were sold. order the parts to build it; and there’s plumped down in front of the smart the Biggest Lego Train Layout Ever night, on his own. sets themed around space, robots, Whole product lines (particularly those a pretty funky robot, Mindstorms, rectangular building labeled Head (1,019m) or beat the Fastest Time to In 1947, Lego bought Denmark’s Vikings, castles, space, the wild west for girls, with whom Lego has always for older children and adults, which Office: Lego A/S. My goal here is to Build the Lego Imperial Star Destroyer first injection-molding machine and and pirates — the first even remotely had trouble engaging) were axed. More communicates wirelessly with your find out how, in the teeth of global (3,104 pieces; five builders maximum began making toys with some plastic unfriendly looking Lego mini-figures, than 1,000 of the company’s 3,500 jobs computer and can be programmed recession and barely five years since it and no pre-sorting allowed; record: 1 components; its first big 100 percent unshaven and scowling and carrying in Billund went, a shocking experience to climb stairs, say, or select only the was being read the last rites, one of the hour, 42 minutes, 43 seconds). plastic hit was a model Ferguson (heavens!) weapons. Then in the for a town whose pristine, ultra- green M&Ms from a pile. world’s best-loved brands has come There are enthusiasts out there tractor, produced for Christmas 1990s came the licensed products: automated factories produce some But Nipper dreams of a “seamless back from the dead. For Lego, born of who make animated film shorts using 1951. Then, in 1949, Christiansen Star Wars, Harry Potter, Bob the 36,000 Lego elements every minute melding” of two interrelated worlds: an earlier and tougher depression, is characters and sets built solely of came across some intriguing Builder, SpongeBob SquarePants, — but one that seems, astonishingly, a day when playing with a physi- positively reveling in this one: the little Lego. A man called Brendan Powell English-made plastic building blocks Indiana Jones. And then things to have been accepted. cal toy in a bedroom will somehow studded, primary-colored bricks are Smith has built The Brick Testament called Kiddicraft, designed by a started to go awry. This town isn’t just about Lego any change its characteristics in an online selling like never before. — 2,000 scenes from the Bible — Hilary Harry Fisher Page, with little “We’d lost sight of what we were more, you know,” observes a woman multiplayer game, for example. Or Its hometown, though, is a bit too using Lego. And half a dozen people round studs on the top. Inspired, good at,” says Simonsen. “There were who asked to be called just Birgita, vice versa. “Imagine,” he says, “if much for some people. “I couldn’t ever are Lego Certified Professionals: Lego started producing its own other reasons too: the market was perching her youngest son on the back kids were telling their playmates: live here,” admits Mads Nipper, who company-accredited creative artists Automatic Binding Bricks. changing fast, children were getting of her bicycle outside the supermarket. ‘Hey! Guess what! If you clip a set of looks and — when it comes to plastic whose working medium is Lego. I’m The Lego System of Play was older younger, computer games were “We’re proud of Lego, certainly, but shoulder pads on to this guy, he gets bricks — acts about 12, but turns out not sure how many of them, mind launched, to widespread indifference, really taking off. But basically, we’d there are lots of other companies, lots three times as many strength points to be one of the company’s executive you, awakened by some nocturnal in 1955. It consisted of 28 building sets, got into movies, clothes, software of other jobs here now. The good thing online!’ That would be the holy grail. vice-presidents. “I’m nuts about Lego, commotion, have rushed bleary-eyed eight vehicles, various supplementary games, own-brand stores, theme was that all that happened when the But we’re not there yet.” believe me; I eat, sleep and breathe the into their children’s bedroom at dead components, all interchangeable (as parks from Windsor, England, to rest of the economy was still in quite In the meantime, Lego is looking stuff. But there’s a bit too much of it of night and stepped on a Lego brick they still are; Lego bricks from the California — all non-core stuff that good shape.” to a completely new venture.