In 1932 carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen founded his company in Billund, Denmark with the intention of encouraging creative play and awe-inspiring in children. At first, he made stepladders, but the effects of the Great Depression forced him to be flexible and change his business model. He switched his focus on the manufacture of toys and in the process he established one of the most popular brands in the history of the world.
Christiansen was a progressive thinker and quick to adopt new technologies and materials. In 1947, he became the first company to purchase a plastics injection molding machine in the world. This significantly increased the range of address capabilities and options for Lego products. The machine allowed him to explore and create the Lego brick. The bricks were hollow on the bottom and had pegs on the top. They interlocked to allow children to build intricate structures that were far more complex than the ones made with wooden blocks from previous generations.
The 1950s saw a period of expansion for the company. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen’s daughter Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen was a member of the management staff and began to modernize the manufacturing processes of the company. This expansion saw the introduction of a line of dollhouses and furnishings for girls, as well as the very first Minifigures, which are individual figurines. In 1979, the company widened its range of products to include sets with miniature astronauts and rockets. They also introduced spaceships, lunar rovers and spaceships.
In 1990, the company released three Model Team sets that were designed for advanced builders. The sets introduced small components like gears, axles, and levers. They also offered an amount of realisticity and precision that was unheard of in the Lego series at the time.