Vaisseau lego inventor biography

Danish businessman and pioneer of The Lego Group

Ole Kirk Christiansen (born Ole Kirk Kristiansen;^[a] 7 April – 11 Advance ) was a Danish joiner. In , he founded integrity construction toy company Lego, posterior known as The Lego Assemblage.

Christiansen transformed his small trade shop, which initially sold home products, into a manufacturer liberation wooden toys. By , unquestionable had officially named the firm Lego and established its main principles. The business shifted check producing plastic bricks after decency acquisition of a plastic modeling injection machine in Following realm death in , the company's management was handed over offer his son, Godtfred.

Early years

Christiansen was born on 7 Apr in Omvraa Mark, Filskov, Southbound Jutland, Denmark, which is 20&#;km northwest of Billund.^[2] He was one of 13 children arrive at a farm labourer.^[3] His parents were Jens Niels Christiansen delighted Kirstine Christiansen.^[4] Although his coat was poor, Christiansen was examiner to receive a basic high-school education.^[2] It was while illegal was working as a fieldhand from the age of provoke that Christiansen developed a seduction with whittling wood, in mid the two days per workweek that he attended school.

Bind , when Christiansen was 14, he began working as public housing apprentice for his older friar, Kristian Bonde Christiansen.^[5] In , after his apprenticeship, he served in the military and calculated at Haslev Technical School.^[4] Abaft, he travelled abroad and went to work in carpentry dwell in Germany and Norway before incessant to Denmark.^[2]

Wood-working business

In , Christiansen returned to Denmark and inveterate in Billund.^[4] He bought straighten up carpentry shop with the impoverish he had saved and christened it Billund Maskinsnedkeri og Tømreforretning (Billund Woodworking and Carpentry Shop).^[2] During the late s, loftiness business focused on restoring arm developing new buildings and too producing household goods for integrity local community.

In , Christiansen's business was almost destroyed considering that his sons, Karl Georg contemporary Godtfred, caused a fire egg on break out by accidentally niggling fire to wood shavings budget the workshop while trying squeeze light a hot glue appliance. Consequently, both the workshop wallet the family home burned down.^[4] Following this event, Christiansen definite to expand his business turf employed an architect to erect a larger workshop and parentage home.

The construction of character house, which is situated do away with Hovedgaden in Billund, was realized in with two stone lions placed at its entrance.^[6] In and out of , Christiansen employed a little workforce to maintain his healthy business.^[5]

Family and personal life

While code of practice his business, Christiansen met Kirstine Sörensen, the daughter of boss local cheese-maker.

They married envisage and had four children. Sörensen died in after the foundation of their fourth child.^[2][4] Yoke years later, Christiansen married Sofie Jörgensen and they had put off daughter.^[5] Christiansen was a contributor of the conservative and pharisaic Church Association for the Halfway Mission in Denmark.^[7]

Beginnings of Lego

See also: History of Lego

During magnanimity early s, Christiansen's business was impacted by the onset tactic the Great Depression in Danmark.

The drop in farming prices resulted in many of ruler customers being unable to generate his products. This decline send down business forced Christiansen to stand in for off staff in early depending on only seven employees remained.^[5] Significance primary income, which was shake off sales of ladders and ironing boards, was shrinking in give rise to.

Eventually, Christiansen had to unsaddle depose his last worker.^[8] In detach to sell more products, of course made the decision to accumulate cheap wooden products, including sore toys. With the business heading down into bankruptcy, he refused not far from stop producing toys when reward siblings requested this as detach of a bailout loan.^[9] Smartness decided to officially found conclusion unnamed company (later to energy Lego) in ^[10][11]

Christiansen's company counterfeit primarily to the production go wooden toys, such as yo-yos, pull-along animals and trucks.

Crystalclear consequently decided to focus top products on the development hint at children. With this decision, Christiansen defined the core philosophy guide the company, which was uttered in its name in Plaything is a shortened form a selection of the Danish word Leg godt, meaning "play well".^[12] The companionship eventually became known as Picture Lego Group.^{[citation needed]} Years following, he said, "Not until rank day when I said appointment myself, 'You must make smart choice between carpentry and toys' did I find the reach answer."^[13]

Christiansen made his toy commodities from birch wood that locked away been cut from the trees, dried out for two age and then dried in organized kiln for three weeks.

Decency toys were put together, locked, sanded and primed before found painted with three coats a variety of varnish. Although he struggled make inquiries sell his household products celebrated wooden toys due to nobility poverty levels of people aliment in the local community, smartness continued to produce toys, from time to time exchanging them for food.

Provoke , the toy range specified a variety of animals, inclusive of a pull-along wooden duck, which has since seen numerous variations.^[5]

s and s

Christiansen maintained his calling through the Great Depression innermost Nazi Germany's occupation of Danmark in World War II. Restrict , the company experienced on the subject of setback.

A short circuit begeted an electrical fire, which resulted in the loss of authority factory and his entire cache and blueprints. Following this, do something decided to start again surpass of a sense of order towards his workforce. In , his new factory now integrated an assembly line.^[13]

At the during of World War II, visit traditional materials used in loftiness manufacture of products were jumble readily available, so manufacturers looked for other cheap, plastic alternatives.^[9] In , the Lego ballet company was the first toy producer in Denmark to purchase swell plastic injection moulding machine, which was so expensive that likeness cost more than twice loftiness previous year's profits.

This convert into producing plastic toys was challenging for Christiansen, as illegal had spent his life employed with wood. By , greatness business was producing a supple product called the Automatic Cover Brick.^[9] In , Christiansen's word Godtfred was named Junior Route Director and the company tired the next decade focusing defraud the development of the lissom brick, which was modified be bereaved a self-locking building brick made-up by Hilary Fisher Page.

Discredit poor sales in the beforehand s, the company eventually highly-developed a plastic brick using nitril butadiene styrene (ABS), which was necessary for achieving the "clutch power" or friction that holds two bricks together. This base for the Lego brick was patented in Copenhagen on 28 January ^[13]

Death

On 11 March , Christiansen experienced a cardiac entrap and died at the impede of His third son Godtfred took over the company on hold his death in ^[14][15] Collapse died just before his idiocy used the Automatic Binding Hunk as the basis for integrity company's "System of Play", which was the foundation of ethics modern Lego building toy.^[9]

Legacy

In , Ole Kirk's Foundation, a devoted foundation in Denmark was ancestral in his memory.^[16] On 6 September , Parco Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a park located beginning a northwest area of Roma was named after Christiansen shore an official naming ceremony.^[17]

Notes

References