How did the need for a larger showroom lead to the creation of LEGOLAND Billund? Learn how a single idea built the theme park that became one of Denmark’s top tourist attractions.
LEGOLAND Billund might seem to be a bit of an oddity for an amusement park, especially when it was built. In 1968, LEGOLAND Billund joined a small, remote town that was just beginning to grow into the LEGO-brick metropolis it is today (well, metropolis might be stretching it a bit). In 1968, Billund was barely a decade removed from having its lone train station shut down and its airport was still in its infancy, so the town was about as remote as remote can get in Denmark. The LEGO Group opened a theme park anyway.
Except it wasn’t really intended to be a theme park.
“The original idea wasn’t a family theme park,” says LEGO Corporate Historian Signe Wiese Bundsbæk. “In the early 1960s, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (the second-generation owner of the company) hired his cousin, Dagny Holm, to come work for him. She was a classically trained sculptor and started working with bricks.”
Dagny Holm’s work had her applying her sculpting knowledge to creating not LEGO sets, but large-scale models akin to the ones now commonly found in LEGOLAND Parks across the globe — and that’s no coincidence.
“Her models were used for exhibitions, fairs and different types of shows,” Signe continues. “So we suddenly had these huge models showing what LEGO bricks could do outside of sets.”
At the same time, the LEGO Group featured its more reasonably sized models, ones that represented LEGO building sets, in a dedicated model room in System House. The room featured a sprawling city layout of brick-built locations dotted with pre-moulded elements as decoration. This worked well for a while, but the LEGO brick proved so popular that the model room at one point reached 20,000 visitors in a year, crowding out employees and visitors alike.
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“People would come and see this model room,” Signe says, “and it got kind of crowded in there. So Godtfred decided that he would create an outdoor showroom.”
Godtfred tasked Arnold Boutrup, the chief designer at a Copenhagen toy store, to create this LEGO land. An outdoor showroom would mean more space for people to come and view the models without disturbing employees working in the building. It also meant that there would be much more room to put models on display, providing a perfect opportunity for Dagny to showcase her models in a new way.
“We actually have one of the original drawings of his idea. It’s basically a fenced-in area with one gate in, and then the big models inside. That was the original thinking,” says Signe. “It was meant to be an outdoor showroom to show what you could do with LEGO bricks. Then the idea took off. A few people were hired, and eventually it ended up being this family park with different types of rides. And of course, in the early days, it focused around Miniland and Dagny’s builds because she became responsible for building all the models in the different areas of LEGOLAND.”
The humble idea was quickly growing into something far beyond what even Godtfred had originally imagined. What was once supposed to be a mere exhibition space now included a train, driving school and puppet theatre. But at the end of the day, it was still a small theme park in an isolated part of Denmark, based entirely around a product that had only launched ten years prior.
“Shortly before the opening, Godtfred was asked by a journalist how many guests he was expecting to come to visit this LEGO brick thing in a field in Jutland,” Signe explains. “And Godtfred was being fairly optimistic. So he said, ‘Well, I think I’m going to have about 350,000 people come in the first season.’ And people thought he was nuts. Because this was a small town. Who wanted to come see that?
“Then the gates opened. And 625,000 people came in the first season. I think it’s fair to call it an instant success. The park was completely overworked the first couple of weeks because they hadn’t hired enough people. And, well, then it went from there.”
‘Went from there’ might be underselling just how massive a success LEGOLAND Billund ended up being. Eleven LEGOLAND parks now dot the globe from California to Germany to Shanghai and together welcome more than 15 million visitors each year – and LEGOLAND Billund is no small part of that total.
“It’s kind of a cool place,” Signe laughs. “I spent every childhood weekend there.”
LEGO House’s exclusive set for 2026, 40507 I Love Billund, celebrates the various sights and locations in Billund, which is continuing to grow with the construction of Innovation Campus and Kornmarken Campus.
To find our more about the new LEGO House exclusive, get Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine, Issue 137 when it launches on February 27. Blocks is part of LEGO House – you can make your own magazine cover in Character Creator.
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