‘LEGO is for everyone,” insists Kathrine Kirk Muff, of the LEGO House, sensing my cynicism. I’ve come to Billund, the home of the world-famous plastic brick after years of requests from my kids, but surely Billund being the home of LEGO isn’t enough to captivate a whole family?
To be fair, I was a massive fan of LEGO when I was wee, back when it was just simple bricks you bashed together to make unrecognisable approximations of things I loved, like planes and boats.
As I grew up and LEGO morphed into a confusing array of theme parks and special ranges – from LEGO Friends and the Asian-themed Ninjago – I lost sight of LEGO as my two daughters grew into it. It was not something at 53 I thought I would take any pleasure re-visiting.
I thought my honesty with Kathrine would fall on deaf ears. Far from it.
“We too realised we had to simplify things and get back to the core of what this family-run business does,” she beams as she brews me a proper coffee in LEGO House’s café – it’s always a great sign when a managing director chips in. “We got back to basics, selling off the theme parks and focusing back on the brick. Again, it’s all about the brick.”
It is all about the brick in Billund – the self-styled “Capital of Children” – as we find out when we fly into the airport and see the immediate image of LEGO. Billund is still home to LEGO’s headquarters and lives and breathes LEGO, nowhere more so than LEGO House (below), which has been a roaring success since opening in 2017.
LEGO House is the single biggest investment by LEGO in years and took a year and a half to build, with 20 million LEGO bricks woven into the structure. I love that the vast reception is free for anyone to enter and play in. And that numbers are strictly limited beyond the ticket barriers to the upper floors so that families can really enjoy themselves without feeling rushed or overcrowded. The focus is indeed back on the brick, with building using LEGO paramount over fancy themed kits.
For a family attraction to work, it has to engage everyone; LEGO House does. My daughters delight in building wee boats and buses, taking photos that are recorded on their bracelets, negating the “need” for my teenagers to walk around with their phones. Indeed, they soon ask us to store their phones while they throw themselves into the action, peeling back the years. Priceless.
We bond over family portraits made of LEGO, but they also skip off happily on their own with none of the bickering that can accompany visits to family attractions. And my wife and I don’t just slump in a café either, making what is, of course, deemed an “embarrassing” LEGO movie about how we met and married.
As we move from yellow zone to red, to green and to blue, my cynicism slowly dissolves. My own journey is complete in the basement museum, which catapults me back to my childhood.
Not ones to stand on their hard-won plastic laurels, Kathrine shows me into the “Masters Academy”.
“LEGO House already has 20 million LEGO bricks and soon it will have another five million more,” she explains.
It doesn’t open until September, but the limited slots are getting snapped up fast at this new year-round attraction. It looks like a TV show and will have two actors leading just 40 guests through the weird and wonderful world of becoming a “LEGO Master”.
Often restaurants at theme parks are just refuelling stops bathed in grease. Not so at LEGO House with Mini Chef. Kathrine insists they “serve proper food”. She is right, just that it is served by robots. The delightful Robert and Roberta dispense our lunchboxes. We choose our meals – mine is falafel followed by a delicious cauliflower curry – on the screen at our table then insert our orders – built, of course, in LEGO.
Kathrine insists there will only ever be one LEGO House, but there are 11 LEGOLAND theme parks globally. The original, of course, is in Billund. LEGOLAND may no longer be owned by LEGO, but the second-biggest tourist attraction in Denmark outside Copenhagen swirls around the brick.
We spend a whole day at LEGOLAND. Again, it proves, for me, surprisingly enjoyable. The Billund incarnation is much more laidback than the frenetic Windsor one. My teens enjoy bashing around rides that may not have the adrenaline wows of Florida’s parks, but are fun for us all to share together.
If you’re visiting the LEGO House, a visit to the adjacent theme park remains essential. For busier times, they have an efficient fast-track system too – “Reserve and Ride”.
Heading home, I’d expected the kids would be sated with LEGO. Instead Tara is gleaming with the LEGO kit she bought by the designer who was casually signing boxes in the LEGO House, and Emma insists the first thing she is going to do when she gets home is get out her LEGO.
I may well be joining her.
For more information on LEGO House, see www.legohouse.com. Make sure to book ahead for the house, the Mini Chef experience and the LEGO Masters Academy
