What the work is
The modern LEGO brick developed in 1958 from earlier interlocking plastic toys. The company had produced Automatic Binding Bricks since 1949, drawing on Hilary Page’s Kiddicraft design.
Hilary Page’s Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks were invented in 1939 and patented in the United Kingdom in 1940. Lego had received a sample of them from the supplier of an injection-moulding machine, produced in England, that it had purchased. A patent application for the modern brick design was filed in Denmark on 28 January 1958. In 1981 Lego reached an out-of-court settlement with Page’s estate, reportedly for around £45,000, for continued use of the brick design.
How it was made
Early bricks used cellulose acetate. ABS replaced it in 1963. The important design unit is the connection: pieces must join firmly enough to build with while remaining separable for another construction.
What works
Compatibility lets each piece participate in many possible objects. The brick’s usefulness grows through its relationship with other parts, so a finished model is only one temporary arrangement of the system.
Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made today, and sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways. In a 2012 test for the BBC’s More or Less programme, the Open University’s engineering department found that a 2×2 brick can stand an average maximum force of 4,240 newtons.
What does not
The system still defines a vocabulary of connections and dimensions. It supports extensive variation, but the builder works within the possibilities of the available parts. Early bricks also needed technical improvement before the modern system emerged.
By 1954 Godtfred Christiansen, the founder’s son, was junior managing director, and a conversation with an overseas buyer led him to the idea of a toy system. He saw the potential of the bricks as a system for creative play, but they still had technical problems: their locking ability was limited and they were not yet versatile. Private tests have shown several thousand assembly-disassembly cycles before the bricks begin to wear out, although Lego’s own tests show fewer cycles.
What it influenced
The 1958 design established a basis for compatibility across subsequent generations of bricks. That continuity gives older pieces a role in new constructions and makes the system’s history materially present during play.
Is it worth your time
Worth studying for modular design. Compare the complexity of a single brick with the variety of structures a small collection can make. The central achievement is the relationship between pieces, not the complexity of each piece alone.
