Happy Lego Day! It's not just for kids anymore
National Post, 28 January 2025
Happy Lego Day! It's not just for kids anymore
This is not your grandfather’s Lego. But perhaps your father still plays with the delightful little bricks. Lego is not entirely what it used to be, a toy for the imaginative creativity of children, rather than the imitative capacity of adults.
Jan. 28 is International Lego Day. Yes, there are international days for everything; Lego’s is designated to mark the date in 1958 when the patent application for Lego was submitted to the Danish Directorate for Patents and Trademarks — at 1:58 p.m. to be exact. The original is kept at the Lego House museum in Billund, Denmark. Yes, there is a museum preserving the history of Lego.
I have fond memories of Lego from my own childhood; our toys included a bin of bricks of assorted sizes, shapes and colours awaiting assembly according to the careful creativity — or absurd arbitrariness — of a child. It was a low-cost toy that had unlimited potential. Forty years later my nephews were playing with the same set. No planned obsolescence at Lego; whatever the bricks are made from is apparently indestructible. Boeing should use it for its airplanes.
The name Lego was chosen by founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen from two Danish words — “leg godt” — meaning “play well.” He had begun making wooden toys of the highest quality, and his philosophy was that children’s play ought to aim for excellence — high-quality toys designed for fruitful development. Play was understood as having a purpose, like work does, but fun. Play is the work that children do to learn, grow and develop. Play that is only an amusement, let alone a kind of distraction or a sedative, is not playing well.
Those who don’t keep up with Lego might be surprised that it is not produced only for children. In the old days, parents purchased an array of bricks which their children made into everything from castles and cars to gardens and guns. Now there are sets in which a precise number of highly specific pieces are to be assembled like a jigsaw puzzle. It is a different kind of play, moving from imagination to imitation.
Some of these sets are astonishingly complex, marvellous models of engineering and design. And they are not cheap. The Millennium Falcon set weighs in at 7,541 pieces and costs $1,050. If your fancy turns to failed ships of the past rather than fabulous ships of the future, the Titanic set has more pieces, 9,090, but is a relative bargain at $850. A discount must apply for the White Star shipping line using weaker materials than Lego does.
The ship of faith is more affordable still; Notre Dame of Paris is a modest $300, and only 4,383 pieces. Who knew that an 800-year-old cathedral was only half as complicated as a cruise ship that sank on its maiden voyage?
These intricate constructions are not for children. They are rated, like movies. Some are 16+, like driving, or 18+, like hard liquor. What does it matter? In Canada, where the revenue agents are exacting in their adjudications, the old Lego qualifies for the GST holiday as toys for children. The mature-rated sets do not, as they are considered, correctly enough, to be elaborate paint-by-numbers for adults.
Is something lost in the move from old Lego to new Lego?
Certainly not revenue. Lego’s revenues have multiplied tenfold from about 6.5 billion Danish kroners in 2003 to 65 billion in 2023 (Cdn $13.1 billion). Lego has a flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue where the queue is often out the door. There are Lego theme parks with stunningly lifelike animals rendered in Lego bricks. There are Lego movies, too.
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