As a child, I had many toys, all of which I remember fondly. I played with little plastic toy soldiers, Hot Wheels cars, toy lightsabers, and even toy kitchens (I had a peculiar love for those). Nothing ever rivalled LEGO, however, for the sheer hours, and the sheer money, spent. I still have all of it, too, in four or five storage boxes in my parents’ attic. Hundreds of pounds worth. I could probably build practically anything I wanted, and every part is meticulously organised. I took this seriously, and I have remarkably happy memories tidying it all up with my mum, carefully placing wheels in one place, and windscreens in another.
Hopefully, one day I will have a family of my own, and I can introduce my children to the joy of LEGO, a toy that has undoubtedly helped me grow into who I am today. There’s something magical about a toy which allows you to create anything. While the company is focusing far more on pre-designed sets than it used to, the great joy is building that model, then slowly gutting it to make something even better, or buying a huge box of assorted bricks and constructing whatever comes to mind.
Most toys begin with something pre-constructed, pre-designed and come with a specific pattern of play. This is fine, but limits the creativity that can be channelled into a session. LEGO limits the pre-determination as much as possible, leaving everything open ended. For a child, this spurs a degree of imagination that’s impossible with other toys. While we see this degree of creativity emulated in games such as Minecraft (which even has its own line of LEGO sets), it will never be the same as handling the small plastic bricks and slotting them together. Piles of coloured plastic become houses, cars, animals and people, which are then imbued with a story, or shown off to the world by a proud parent.
This level of creativity and technicality will have contributed towards generations of architects, engineers and designers. I, for one, know that I have gained some technical skills from spending so many hours with LEGO bricks. I couldn’t say how much, but I do know how quickly I can put a modern LEGO set together!
Which means, yes, I’ve recently bought a bunch of the stuff. I have no regrets. Yes, LEGO is a toy, but it’s not like I’m purchasing those plastic kitchens I used to have (I use real ones now). In fact, architects and designers in the adult world use LEGO to play around with designs, businesses are bringing in boxes of LEGO so their employees can work together to “enhance innovation and business performance”, and the owner of the business I work for built a table top from it for his cafe, this ‘toy’ is no joke, it’s a remarkable system, just because it’s designed for play does not mean it’s only for children. Play is the best way to learn, for a person of any age, it’s why it is so efficient for children, it’s just that teaching quantum mechanics or poetry is hard with plastic bricks, making it less effective for university students like myself.
LEGO is just as much for collectors as it is for children in 2018, even the staff in the amazing Leicester Square store will tell you that. Builders such as JANGBRiCKS make a living from reviewing sets and showing off their own creations, and there’s a real community around the product that I am sure the company is very proud of. While I might not be able to afford to build a custom city as amazing as JANGBRiCKS’s below, I can occasionally invest a few pounds into a cool set. While I set out to write some kind of intelligent article, this really has turned into a love letter for this product.
Just looking at the featured image for this article makes me excited. I want to grab the bricks and try and create something amazing. As a company that puts its values at the top of its agenda, LEGO is probably the best toy manufacturer on the planet. The little bricks really are the distilled essence of creativity and play. If you played with LEGO as a kid, or even if you never have, spend a few pounds on a set, just for the hell of it. Pick whatever takes your fancy, and build it, I’d be surprised if you didn’t enjoy it, and weren’t proud of what you created.
If you have time, I’d encourage you to watch this short little video celebrating the 60th anniversary of the LEGO brick, it’s quite remarkable.
Oliver Douglas 