02 / Company & ownership
Behind the brand.
Ole Kirk Kristiansen began making wooden toys in Billund and named the company from the Danish words leg godt, play well. The modern system took shape when plastic bricks gained their locking stud-and-tube geometry.
Sources · previous brand research
- 1932
Ole Kirk Kristiansen establishes the toy business.
- 1934
The LEGO name is adopted.
- 1958
The modern brick coupling principle is patented.



