The little building blocks first appeared 60 years ago and now kids just won’t Lego of the toy box favourite.
Since it was patented on January 28, 1958, fans young and old have been building Lego creations.
Piece by painstaking piece, Lego has been shaped into, well, almost anything, from a magnificent tree to the Star Wars Millennium Falcon.
And it has certainly lived up to its name, an abbreviation of the Danish words “leg” and “godt” – meaning “play well”.
Here we take a look at the plastic’s most fantastic work…
Sculpture
One of the most famous Lego creations is Nathan Sawaya’s Yellow, above. The ex-lawyer, below, gave up his career and became an artist, specialising in Lego.
“Yellow is about baring his soul,” he said. “I was letting everything out, moving from the safe, corporate world.”
Biggest
This tree is one of the biggest Lego structures ever, standing at around 15.5m tall at LegoHouse in Billund, Denmark.
It took 24,350 hours and 6.3 million pieces.
The Tree of Creativity is so strong you can climb it. It succeeds a Tower Bridge replica, with 5.8 million bricks, as biggest build.
Tallest
Eight-year-old cancer victim Omer Sayag loved to build Lego while he was poorly in hospital, so family and friends wanted to build the tallest tower in his memory.
The Omer Tower in Tel Aviv, Israel, is 36m tall. It took more than two weeks and half-amillion bricks to build last month. Guinness World Records is yet to verify it but it looks likely to beat the 35m record set in Milan in 2015.
Homeliest
Last year, Lego teamed up with Airbnb to give one lucky family the chance to stay at LegoHouse .
A bed floats in a pool of bricks, under a 6m tall Lego waterfall. And everything from the armchairs to TV and cat on the bed are made out of Lego.
Priciest
Fans are willing to shell out a lot for the latest sets but this one will set you back a bit…
The Star Wars Millennium Falcon set costs £649.99 but sells for thousands on eBay as it has sold out in the shops.
The biggest set available for home build, it has 7,541 pieces.
Flag
It probably wouldn’t be practical to stick this on a pole but the biggest flag made out of Lego is 2.3m tall and 4m wide.
It was created by Oman Avenues Mall in Muscat, Oman, in November, 2017.
Wind turbine
Setting another world record was this stunning wind turbine. An impressive 7.63m tall, it was created by a team from the firm in Liverpool last May.
In all, 146,251 bricks were used and it took 600 man hours to construct.
Lego Christmas stories
Bus stop
In 2014 a bus stop was made out of more than 100,000 bricks.
Sited by Hamleys toy shop in Regent Street, Central London, it was a working stop.
From humble roots to most powerful brand on the planet
Parking meters, cod wars and the opening of the UK’s first motorway share Lego’s 60th anniversary.
More than 480 billion bricks have been produced, which is enough for every person on the planet to own more than 80 each.
The firm also happens to be the world’s biggest tyre manufacturer.
In Billund village in Denmark, carpenter Godfred Christiansen first began creating wooden toys before the adventures in plastic started in 1949.
Nine years later the brick received its patent. But becoming the world’s biggest toy-maker hasn’t always been easy.
In 2004 costs were spiralling and no one seemed to know the amount needed to create the toys.
Slashing the number of parts down to 6,000 was the first target. Dropping lines no one wanted and licensing sets from films such as Star Wars and Harry Potter helped the company get back on track.
In 2017 it became the world’s most powerful brand, worth £5.6billion.
Today not only do children love the toy, excited AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego) also gather to create jaw-dropping sets at conventions.
Lego now dominates the aisles in toy shops and will hopefully do so for many more years.
