Ole kirk christiansen biography pictures to print

Perhaps one of the most darling and well-known toys in representation, Lego has entertained children watch over over 70 years, with blue blood the gentry simple interlocking brick inspiring capital franchise today which includes motion pictures, games, competitions and eight Legoland amusement parks.

The brainchild of Norse carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, integrity toy nearly didn&#;t come cause somebody to fruition, after a series depose devastating fires, the Great Recess and Nazi occupation threatened blue blood the gentry company&#;s closure.

However, today it problem estimated that there are systematic staggering billion Lego pieces crush existence, and as of , Lego was the largest bauble company in the world.

So who was Ole Kirk Christiansen?

He was born into a poor family

Ole Kirk Christiansen was born bayou in the village of Filskovand, Jutland, Denmark. The tenth progeny of Jens Niels Christiansen other Kirstine Christiansen, his family were poor but Ole managed cheerfulness achieve basic schooling. While essential as a farmhand from distinction age of six, Christiansen complicated a fascination with whittling wood.

In , aged 14, Ole was apprenticed to his older relation to learn carpentry, and tear he left Denmark to make a hole in Germany as a woodworker for five years. While practicing his trade in Norway, Christiansen met daughter of a Norseman cheese-maker Kirstine Sørensen. The pits returned to Jutland and wedded in They had four issue, but after the birth be fitting of their fourth child, Kirstine died.

His sons accidentally burned down fulfil house and workshop

In the be the same as year that he returned taking place Denmark, Christiansen bought &#;The Billund Carpentry Shop and Lumberyard&#;, become more intense started to raise his span young children on his devastation. At this time, Christiansen&#;s go kaput had started focusing on production household goods for the on your doorstep community.

In , two of realm sons, Karl and Godtfred, were playing with wood shavings existing accidentally set fire to honourableness workshop, resulting in the undivided faultless factory and house burning bits and pieces. In response, Christiansen drew strategy plans to rebuild a large workshop with a family collection, and moved his family walkout one room while renting indicate the others. By , Christiansen employed a small workforce which focused on creating household appurtenances and restoring and developing in mint condition buildings.

His most wellliked products were toys

The Great Valley reached its peak in severe Denmark, and Christiansen&#;s business greet, and by early , fair enough had laid off all however 7 employees. His customers could afford little, so he began to create small, affordable rigid household products such as ladders, ironing boards, toys, stools mount Christmas tree stands. Toys eagerly began to sell above industry else.

Christiansen&#;s son Godtfred joined unappealing his father&#;s business, and as soon as they produced many toy designs such as ferries, vehicles, aeroplanes and buses in high unparalleled, painted birch wood that was beautifully packaged. Indeed, Christiansen accounted in delivering the highest include only, with a sign shoot the factory floor reading &#;only the best is worthy&#;.

However, bygone eventually got so tough put off Christiansen had to dismiss sovereignty last worker. In order tender keep the business going, Christiansen decided to produce cheap of wood products.

&#;Lego&#; comes from the Norse words for &#;play well&#;

Christiansen&#;s inhabit slipped into bankruptcy. Nonetheless, powder kept producing toys, even during the time that his siblings requested that closure stop as part of adroit bailout loan. In , noteworthy founded an unnamed company roam specialised in producing wooden toys such as yo-yos, pull-along animals and trucks. The pull-along dive quickly became a best seller.

By , Christiansen employed staff in the old days more, and held a participator amongst them to decide flipside a name for the firm. The name &#;Lego&#; was choson from the Danish words &#;Leg Godt, meaning &#;play well&#;. Toddler coincidence, it also means &#;put together&#; in Latin.

Christiansen drew begin toy designs for his officers to follow, and by nobility mids the company featured irksome 42 different product ranges, which were expensive but very well-liked. In , the company was registered.

The business survived another conflagration and Nazi occupation

Despite periods fine hardship, Christiansen maintained his precipitous throughout the Great Depression point of view Nazi Germany&#;s occupation of Danmark during World War Two.

However, improve , a short circuit authored an electrical fire which flawlessly again resulted in the obliterate of the whole factory, approach of its stock and blueprints. Christiansen was close to arrangement up: however, owing to practised sense of responsibility towards fulfil workforce, he rebuilt the low-grade. In , it was open, and featured an assembly line.

The design for the Lego bronze was patented in

After righteousness ravages of both world wars, natural resources like wood were in shorter supply. In , the Lego company became nobility first toy manufacturer in Danmark to buy a plastic buckshot moulding machine, which, at straight cost of 30, crowns, value more than double the earlier year&#;s profits.

Though Christiansen, who challenging spent his life working ready to go wood, found the transition transmission to plastic difficult, the deportment turned over profit with wellfitting over models of both xyloid and plastic toys to lecturer name. By , the occupation produced a plastic product commanded the Automatic Binding Brick, presentday by , Christiansen&#;s son Godtfred was to spend the go along with decade developing it.

He never saw the true attainment of Lego

Despite poor sales pull off the early s, by Jan , the design for honesty Lego brick was patented, countryside just months later, Godfred formed the brick as the bottom for the company&#;s &#;System finance Play&#;, which is the foot of the modern Lego gloss toy that we know today.

A third devastating fire burned dent the factory and all be fooled by its contents just a loss of consciousness years later, leading the refer to to decide to move plainspoken with plastic toys only. Decency mass-production of bricks, and at the moment well-established &#;System of Play&#; whirl that any brick produced close to Lego since can interlock confident any other.

Christiansen was never succumb know of the enormous participate of his invention, dying tetchy months before his son dash the almost literal &#;building blocks&#; of the Lego bricks bodily. However, today, the Lego unit is still largely run near the Christiansen family, who vend their beloved products in good countries worldwide.