The acknowledgement of Lego in popular culture is demonstrated by the toy's wide representation in publication, television and film, and its common usage in artistic and cultural works.
In 2001, Elbe Spurling started an online web project to create an illustrated version of the Bible using Lego bricks, called The Brick Testament. The project has grown to cover over 400 stories, with over 4000 images, each of which is a photograph of a hand-built Lego scene. The web project drew international media attention, and has been published as three hardcover books.[1]
The first Google computer at Stanford
The search engine Google paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Lego patent by replacing its usual logo on the Google homepage with one made from Lego bricks, along with the Lego figure on one of the letters.[3] Some of the hardware Google's founders had used during their early research was housed in custom-made enclosures constructed from Lego bricks.[4][5]
There are also several online webcomics that feature art illustrated with Lego, such as the Irregular Webcomic!, Brick House, Legostar Galactica, Tranquility Base, The Adventures of the S-Team, Brickworld Saga, Glomshire Knights, and Bricks of the Dead. Many of these webcomics make frequent jokes about the strange abbreviations, pet peeves and complaints often found in the LEGO community.[citation needed]
Books
Lego bricks played a role and were featured on some covers of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs published in June 1995.[6]
Several unofficial books have been written about Lego. The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide was written by Allan Bedford, targeted at children, with the aim of teaching a variety of building techniques at various scales (including minifigure scale and Legoland 'Miniland' scale), as well as including a small encyclopedia of some of the most common different types of Lego brick available. Lego has also released some official Lego books, such as the Ultimate LEGO Book, in 1999.[7]
There have also been many different books published about the Lego Mindstorms robotics product, some of which focus on its use as an educational toy within schools.
There are a number of short movies or recreations of feature films that have been made using Lego bricks, either using stop motion animation or computer-generated imagery (CGI). Making these is a popular fan-activity, and is supported by community websites such as BrickFilms – these films are often known as Brickfilms[8] Other examples include the award-winning music video for the song "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes, in which director Michel Gondry filmed a live version of the video, digitized the result and then recreated it entirely with Lego bricks.
A sequel to the 2014 film, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, was released in 2019 to least box-office success. The film introduced plotlines relating to Duplo, Lego's brand for younger children.
Music
In 1995–96, the Danish composer Frederik Magle composed a symphonic LEGO Fantasia in three movements for piano and symphony orchestra, commissioned by the Lego Group. The LEGO Fantasia was premiered on 24 August 1997 at a concert in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, David Parry and Frederik Magle.[9] In 1998 the work was recorded by the same performers and released on a CD by the Lego group.
The 2011 pop song "Lego House" by British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran has a reference to Lego in the name, even though Lego is only mentioned once in the beginning of the song as a metaphor for a breakup.
Artists have used Lego to create artwork, which is sometimes referred to as Lego art or brick art. [11] twenty people in 2021, in all around the world, have become Lego Certified Professionals; certified artists that use Lego bricks as their medium. The Lego Group recognizes their efforts and they have the ability to not only use the Lego name and copyrighted logo, but have earned a special, in-depth relationship with the company. They are America; Robin Sather, Graeme Dymond, Nathan Sawaya; Europe & Middle East: Georg Schmitt, Matija Puzar,Rene Hoffmeister, Kevin Hall, Riccardo Zangelmi, Caspar Bennedsenand, Balazs Doczy, Vladimir Golubev; Asia-Pacific: Prince (Shenghui) Jiang, Jumpei Mitsui, Wani Kim, Jae Won Lee, Wei Wei Shannon Gluckman, Nicholas Foo, Yenchih Huang, Andy Hung and Ryan McNaught. [12]
Lego bricks have been employed to replicate famous works of art in a mosaic motif, often for the promotion of a Lego event or relating to the replicated artwork. There have been many art-related records (especially mosaics) set by using Lego bricks. The largest Lego mosaic record was set on May 5-7th in 2012, consisting of over 660,000 pieces and measuring 143.91 sq. meters.[13][14] It appears another world record attempt it under way to build a Lego mosaic of over 2,000,000 pieces as of January 2014.[15]
A 2011 exhibition titled Da Vinci, The Genius at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky attracted attention by having a Brick ArtMona Lisa replica constructed by Lego artist Brian Korte.[16] Lego builders such as Eric Harshbarger have made multiple replicas of Mona Lisa. Matching the approximate 21 by 30 inch size (535 x 760+ mm) of Leonardo's original[17] requires upwards of 5,000 standard Lego bricks, but replicas measuring 6 by 8 feet have been built, requiring more than 30,000 bricks.[18][19][20] The Little Artists (John Cake and Darren Neave) have created an entire Modern Art collection in Lego form. Their exhibition 'Art Craziest Nation' [21] was shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, UK.
A giant legofigure called Ego Leonard washed ashore at several beaches in The Netherlands, UK[22] and Siesta Key Florida[23]
Danish artist Jørn Rønnau created a sculpture called The Walker out of 120,000 Lego bricks for the travelling exhibition 'Homo Futurus' at the end of the 1980s. The sculpture later went on display in the Danish pavilion at Expo 2000.[11][25] The Lego-Brücke (Lego Bridge) is situated in Wuppertal, Germany. It received an award in 2012.
In December 2013, Romanian Raul Oaida and Australian Steve Sammartino completed construction of a Lego Car. The car is constructed of over half a million Lego pieces and runs on compressed air.[26]
Television
Lego was the subject of Episode 5 of the 2009 British TV series James May's Toy Stories, in which presenter James May built a full-sized two-story house from 3.3 million Lego bricks in a vineyard of the Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, Surrey. The house was later dismantled, as the space was needed for wine-making and the house lacked planning permission, and the bricks were taken to Legoland Windsor for use as part of an annual building event.[27][28]
An episode of The Simpsons, "Hungry, Hungry Homer" involved the Simpsons family going to Blockoland, a parody of Legoland, which is completely made of blocks. Bart buys a T-shirt made of bricks, accidentally calling it a "Lego shirt" before Marge corrects him. Also during the scene, Lisa was seen with a model of the Eiffel Tower, which was released as an official set by LEGO in 2007. The most usage of LEGO on the show is in the Season 25 episode "Brick Like Me", where Springfield is made from LEGO bricks; it was actually Homer's dream. Also, during that scene, Bart comes out with a robot suit to save Homer from the evil Comic Book Guy, and the robot starts throwing up LEGO lightsabers.
Legoland is also mentioned in several episodes of the TV show Arrested Development.
In 2009, Lego was featured in an episode of MythBusters (Episode 117 - YouTube Special). The build team tested a myth related to a YouTube video that showed a ball of Lego being rolled down a street and into a car, where it caused major damage. The myth was declared busted when the ball started to lose pieces while being rolled down a hill and then smashed into thousands of pieces when it hit a barrier.[29]
Lego was briefly seen in the intro for Happy Endings.
In the anime Shaman King, a character called Brocken Meyers body was crippled, and he subsequently wears a Lego like armor covering him from head to toe to help his disability; and creates various objects to battle with also seemingly made out of Lego (including a T-rex, bird, and tank.) Several other characters also have similar Lego like pieces on their bodies, although far less than Brocken.
Lego is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) that accompany an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Its pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Assembled Lego models can be taken apart, and their pieces can be reused to create new constructions.
A brickfilm is a film or Internet video made by either shooting stop motion animation using construction set bricks like Lego bricks or using computer-generated imagery or traditional animation to imitate the look. They can sometimes also be live action films featuring plastic construction toys. Since the 2000s The Lego Group has released various films and TV series and brickfilms have also become popular on (social-) media websites. The term “brick film” was coined by Jason Rowoldt, founder of the website brickfilms.com.
Lego Technic is a line of Lego interconnecting plastic rods and parts. The purpose of this series is to create advanced models of working vehicles and machines, compared to the simpler brick-building properties of normal Lego.
Bionicle is a line of Lego construction toys marketed primarily towards 8-to-16-year-olds. The line was launched in 2001, originally as a subsidiary of Lego's Technic series. Over the following decade, it became one of the company's biggest-selling properties, turning into a franchise and subsequently becoming one of the factors in saving Lego from its financial crisis of the late 1990s. Despite a planned twenty-year tenure, the theme was discontinued in 2010, citing low sales, but was rebooted in 2015 for a further two years.
This article lists notable events and releases in the history of the Lego Group.
Lego began in 1934 in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christianen, a Danish furniture maker. During the Great Depression, he began to make miniature versions of his products, which inspired him to produce toys. In 1934 the company was named "LEGO", a contraction from the Danish phrase "leg Godt", meaning "play well".
The Lego Group is a Danish construction toy production company based in Billund, Denmark. It manufactures Lego-branded toys, consisting mostly of interlocking plastic bricks. The Lego Group has also built several amusement parks around the world, each known as Legoland, and operates numerous retail stores.
A Lego minifigure, often simply referred to as a Lego figure or a minifig, is a small plastic articulated figurine made of special Lego bricks produced by Danish building toy manufacturer The Lego Group. They were first produced in 1978 and have been a success, with over 4 billion produced worldwide as of 2020. Minifigures are usually found within Lego sets, although they are also sold separately as collectables in blind bags, or can be custom-built in Lego stores and on lego.com. While some are named as specific characters, either licensed from already existing franchises or of Lego's own creation, many are unnamed and are designed simply to fit within a certain theme. They are highly customizable, and parts from different figures can be mixed and matched, resulting in many combinations.
Bionicle: Mask of Light, stylized as BIONICLE: Mask of Light — The Movie, is a 2003 animated science fantasy action film based on the Bionicle toyline by Lego, and particularly serves as a direct adaptation to the latter half of the toyline's 2003 narrative. Set in a universe filled with bio-mechanical beings allied with classical element-themed tribes, the story follows two friends from the fire-based village of Ta-Koro on a quest to find the owner of the Mask of Light, a mystical artifact that can potentially defeat Makuta, an evil entity threatening the island.
Legoland Billund Resort, the original Legoland park, opened on 7 June 1968 in Billund, Denmark. The park is located next to the original Lego factory and Billund Airport, Denmark's second-busiest airport. Over 1.9 million guests visited the park in 2011, and 50 million guests have visited the park since it opened. This makes Legoland the largest tourist attraction in Denmark outside Copenhagen. The Legoland parks that have since been built are modelled upon Legoland Billund, most noticeably the Miniland area, which is made up of millions of plastic Lego bricks.
Lego Studios was a popular brand of Lego toys released in 2000 and mainly focused on movie-making and the steps thereof. Lego Studios was first distributed in November 2000, and was later discontinued in 2003. The last series in the franchise was the Lego Spider-Man set.
Ben 10: Alien Force is an American animated television series created by team Man of Action, and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. It is the sequel to Ben 10 (2005–2008), set five years later and taking a darker turn than its predecessor.
Lego Art is a Lego theme introduced in 2020. It offers sets based on iconic personalities and characters in pop culture, allowing builders to reproduce them in a mosaic-like format using Lego 1x1 studs. Following the launch of Lego DOTS, a theme mainly targeted towards children, the Lego Art theme is the second 2D tile creative concept to be launched by The Lego Group in August 2020.
Sean Kenney is a New York-based artist recognized by The Lego Group as a Lego Certified Professional. He is best known for creating scale models, sculptures, and portraits with Lego toys.
Lego Ninjago is a Lego theme that was created in 2011 and a flagship brand of The Lego Group. It is the first theme to be based on ninjas since the discontinuation of the Lego Ninja theme in 2000. It was produced to coincide with the animated television series Ninjago, which was superseded in 2023 by a new series titled Ninjago: Dragons Rising.
Lego Friends is a product range of Lego construction toys designed primarily for girls that was launched in 2012. It introduced "mini-doll" figures, which are about the same size as traditional Lego minifigures but are more detailed and realistic. The original cast consisted of Andrea, Olivia, Stephanie, Mia and Emma. The theme was relaunched in January 2023 to focus on a more diverse cast of characters: Aliya, Nova, Zac, Liann, Paisley, Leo, Autumn and Olly.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable and famous works of art in the world, and also one of the most replicated and reinterpreted. Mona Lisa studio versions, copies or replicas were already being painted during Leonardo's lifetime by his own students and contemporaries. Some are claimed to be the work of Leonardo himself, and remain disputed by scholars. Prominent 20th-century artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalí have also produced derivative works, manipulating Mona Lisa's image to suit their own aesthetic. Replicating Renaissance masterpieces continues to be a way for aspiring artists to perfect their painting techniques and prove their skills.
Lego Legends of Chima was a Lego theme that was introduced in 2013 and discontinued in 2015. The product line was based on the storyline of Legends of Chima, a 3D animated television series, which was produced to coincide with the Lego theme. The storyline was set in the fictional realm of "Chima", a fantasy world inhabited by various warring tribes of anthropomorphic animals that battle to collect a substance called "Chi". Alongside the television series and several shorts based on Lego Legends of Chima. The theme also produced a range of associated media, including theme park attractions, video games, and publications.
LEGO Discovery Center Boston is an indoor family entertainment center in Assembly Row, Somerville, Massachusetts themed around LEGO products and properties. The attraction opened in 2014, and is currently undergoing a $12 million renovation until Spring 2023 when it will become LEGO Discovery Center. Prior to closing for renovation, the attraction included a LEGO scale model of landmarks in Boston and other Massachusetts cities, such as Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park. It also included several other attractions, such as a 4D theater and several small rides. The attractions are to remain closed during the renovation, however the attached store will remain open. Legoland Discovery Center Boston is owned and operated by leisure group Merlin Entertainments.
LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Toronto is an indoor family entertainment center located in Vaughan Mills mall in Vaughan, Ontario just north of Toronto. The attraction includes 10 LEGO build & play zones, 2 LEGO-themed rides, a soft play area, a 4D cinema, the World's Largest LEGO Brick Flag, and a gift shop. The Centre features more than 3 million LEGO bricks, 500,000 of which are located in the MINILAND. The attraction is owned and operated by British leisure group Merlin Entertainments.
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