Legoland – Creativity Headquarters

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If you can dream it, you can build it. Lego makes it all possible, and this is why I think Lego blocks are one of the most amazing toys around. You can create your own miniature world, and make your own toys, out of what looks like to be almost nothing.

The story they don’t tell you – The illegally copied Brick

Lego is around for the longest time (since 1932) and has a very interesting story, binding an illegal patent, a lawsuit and the buying of the original manufacturing company.

The father of Lego, Ole Kirk Christiansen, is a Danish carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who started with building houses and furniture, and later wooden toys.

In the late 1940s, a British company called Kiddicraft, owned by Hilary Harry Fisher Page, began manufacturing “Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks”. When Kirk came across these bricks in a demo of an injection molding machine, he decided to improve on the building bricks and sell them under his own brand.

When deciding on a name for the company, Christiansen had to choose between “Legio” (“Legion of toys”) and “Lego”, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play well”. Lego means “I put together” in Latin, so the name stayed to the product, until today.

The original inventor of the bricks died without ever finding out Kirk had copied his product illegally and 31 years later, LEGO acquired Kiddicraft when they were preparing to actually sue Tyco for illegally copying ‘their’ bricks. LEGO ended up losing the case and Tyco was allowed to continue selling the bricks.

Legoland – Imagination Land built in Lego Bricks

Situated in the same location where Kirk used to build the wooden toys decades ago, in Billund Denmark, the land of Lego changed significantly since the early 1900’s, becoming the biggest live demo of what you can do with the Lego blocks.

I’ve always been a fan of Lego, so meeting my Lego characters ‘in legoperson’ and walking around in a mini-Lego-City was the dream. Legoland seemed like to normal thing to do 🙂

legoland main entrance

Legoland is a bit of everything. You can walk around the park and feel like you’ve been around the world in a few hours, constantly switching from reality land to imagination land.

main attractions legoland

PirateLand, Knights Kingdom, and a trip into the Wild LegoWest

As main attractions, the park is divided into themes, each one with its own rides, such as PirateLand where you can get into wild battles with the pirates or the Knights Kingdom where a beautiful Castle is taking you into a fairy tale atmosphere.

My favorite part was definitely the MiniLand, a miniature world built in Lego. I used to build my own cities, houses and infrastructure, as a child, from anything I could find around the house, so seeing them built out of Lego blocks was an amazing feeling.

Walking around, I couldn’t help but think about the people who were hired to build the MiniLand. Someone pays you to play with Lego a whole day long? That must be one of the best jobs on Earth! 🙂

legoland mini-amsterdam

Miniature Amsterdam – Built out of Lego bricks

Another neat aspect of the MiniLand are the major landmarks of the world, built from Lego bricks. The closer to the ground you go, the more realistic they look and the more detail you see! Quite impressive!

legoland around the world

Surprisingly enough, there’s a lot of technology behind every single Lego brick. Everything you see moves and behaves like a small copy of the real object. Underneath the park there’s an entire machine guided by a software, which tells every ship, car, windmill, train, crane and any other miniature object, what to do, when and for how long.

The most dangerous part of the park are obviously the gift shops, where the shelves have automatic wallet emptying systems, for the huge Lego fans of all ages. 🙂

The Controversy – Going Commercial or Staying Traditional ?

Anyone who ever run a business knows that as a company, if you want to stay in fashion, you constantly have to reinvent yourself. With the society changing from one year to the other, so do the client’s requests, and then you face a dilemma, which is making more money or staying faithful to your product.

Lego made a lot of changes when it comes to the sets they sell. Opening an entire store for Star Wars fans inside the park, is just one proof of that happening…

What I found particularly sad was the desire to sell, anything, but not the product which made them famous in first place. Inside Legoland, you can find clothing stores, or toys stores selling silly stuffed animals, which have nothing to do with the Lego bricks.

Even sadder is the lack of thematic Lego sets on the shelves, even if they are advertised in the park, and the outrageous prices, even if they claim it’s supposed to be cheaper, as you buy them from the source. The Lego sets were replaces with clothes and stuffed animals, in most stores around the park, even if in a thematic area, they should sell the thematic sets ( in the Knights Kingdom, you should find all the medieval Lego sets, not cheap Chinese toys).

Surprising enough, even if the Lego store sells Lego by the kg, when you try to find the traditional brick of 4×2, which is their iconic brick and is advertised everywhere around the world, they simply DON’T have it! This really made me wonder about the direction in which the company is heading.

In the end is all about money, and the changes Lego made, will keep them on the market for a long time. However, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic to see all the good stuff replaces by commercial sets or items which don’t really scream Lego.

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30 thoughts on “Legoland – Creativity Headquarters”

    • Glad you enjoyed it, Johanna! We also love Lego so it was definitely a lot of fun. I got a few new sets as well, so I spent some time building them. It just never gets old 🙂 Thanks for reading and have a lovely day! xo

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    • My pleasure, Francis! Thank you for reading!
      They are definitely amazing! Who doesn’t love them? But yes, the path they took lately, doesn’t quite amaze me as it used to… Most bricks are designed especially for a particular set, and the pink Lego for girls …. just isn’t my thing 🙂 I mean Lego is Lego. Shouldn’t be for a specific gender, as that wasn’t the idea when they came on the market.
      Have a lovely day and thank you for sharing your thoughts!

      Liked by 1 person

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    • My pleasure, Amanda! It’s quite a story, and not many people know about it. I find it very interesting, as the real father of Lego isn’t actually the inventor of Lego bricks 🙂 You learn something new everyday I guess haha.
      The park was a lot of fun. I loved the miniature cities! It’s so nice to walk around in a city made out of Lego bricks! 🙂
      Have a lovely day and thank you for reading!

      Liked by 1 person

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  9. Lego is certainly one of brilliant products for children to stimulate their creativity, but not only that, I know some adults who are still crazy with Lego products!
    Interesting that you mentioned about the commercialism trend affecting Lego. I have heard this happened as well with Disney. It looks like to me as strategy to maintain their existence, sometimes changes are required and the world keep changing. I guess balancing it would be the best option..

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    • I can’t agree more! Btw, I’m one of those adults haha. A kid wrapped in a big body :)) I got a few sets to build. They are just too much fun.
      I also heard the same about Disney. Such a pity they change so much. They lose that special something by doibg this… balance would be great but that’s hard to achieve.
      Thanks for reading!

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  11. Lovely and very interesting post Lucy. I had no idea about this Legoland though I knew about the Lego toys, it is indeed fascinating…you enter into a whole new world almost carved out of your imagination. It is no more a child’s play, adult’s enjoy such wonderful place…yes, it is an playground for creativity. And in today’s world where we are lost somewhere and we don’t find ourselves, it would be great to be lost in such a wonderful land of Lego…

    Yes, it is place to puncture your pockets, with so many things and the shop tempting you every time you enter it. I love the way you have presented every bit of the land and the pictures captured are beautifully added up to the big picture of child’s play and mind’s imagination.

    Hope you are having a nice week.
    Take care & cheers!!!
    😀

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    • They are definitely a lot of fun and stimulate our imagination and creativity! This is why I love Lego so much 🙂 Besides, you don’t need other toys in order to play with them. You just make your own toys out of the bricks. Very clever!
      Glad you enjoyed the article. Thank you for reading! Always appreciate your feedback. All the best! Take care! 😀

      Liked by 1 person

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      • It seems Lucy you are quite busy and not seen now a days, you are really enjoying the fantastic exploration and joy of expanding the world of creativity, and even the imagination is on full fire…we constantly needs these places and plays to keep us stimulating and keep triggering new dimensions in our thinking…toys are wonderful instrument of shaping our imagination and we enjoy the engagement we have with organizing and arranging the toys to our imagination.
        Have a lovely weekend.
        You too take care!!!
        😀

        Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you so much for your lovely comment! Who doesn’t love Lego? I still buy a set every now and then hah 🙂 Miniland was definitely impressive. It must have taken a long time to build it, but it was for sure a very fun job! Have a great day! x

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    • I was surprised to find out it all started with a stolen idea 🙂 I hope they will not lose their way though.
      I’m past 20 and I still love Lego. I have a few sets around me all the time haha

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