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Podcast: HISTORY This Week
Episode:

How LEGO Rebuilt the Toy Itself

Category: Society & Culture
Duration: 00:31:16
Publish Date: 2025-10-13 08:45:00
Description:

October, 1955. In living rooms across Denmark, children tear open the box of a brand-new toy: the LEGO System in Play. Inside are plastic bricks, a printed playmat of roads, little houses and trees — everything in perfect scale. As they build, something new is taking shape. 

It looks simple, but it’s a radical idea — every piece connects, no matter when or where it’s made. It’s more than a toy — it’s a system. That quiet innovation will turn a small family workshop into one of the most successful companies in the world.

How did a small-town Danish carpenter launch a plastic toy empire? And how did LEGO re-envision what a toy can be?

Special thanks to Kristian Reimber Hauge, corporate historian at the LEGO Idea House; Daniel Konstanski, historian for Blocks Magazine and author of The Secret Life of LEGO® Bricks: The Story of a Design Icon; and Chris Byrne, researcher, historian, and “The Toy Guy.”

We also want to thank Dana Goldsmith, Andreas Friis, and Roberta Cardazzo.




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