| Group soc.culture.nordic
article 953
From: [email protected] (Jacob Kornerup)
Subject: Re: Legoland Amusement Park
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Sure there is an amusement park called Legoland. The Lego bricks are
originally from Denmark, and most of them is produced in the city of
Billund in the middle part of southern Jutland. In the same city you'll
find The Legoland amusement park. It contains several scale models of
real world scenarios as: Mount Rushmore, Statue of Liberty, Dutch
windmills, a western town and more (my memory i rather vague, I haven't
been there in 15 years). But the trademark of the park is that
everything is made of Lego bricks. The park has a separate department
that does nothing but build models - the ultimate "kid forever" job
The park includes a number of rides (traffic school, train ride, boat
rides and gold digging (in the western town)). Recently the park bought
the largest doll house in the world: "Titianas Palace" - this should
also be worth seeing.
Billund has it's own airport with several daily flight to Copenhagen,
so if any of you playful Yuppies out there want to go ;-)
From a Danish guy, who consider Lego as an essential part of his life.
In fact my Masters thesis in C.S. was about Lego bricks !!!!!
Jacob Kornerup ([email protected])
Group soc.culture.nordic
article 956
From: [email protected] (Peter Frenning)
Subject: Re: Legoland Amusement Park
Organization: Altos Computer Systems, San Jose, CA
If you ever go to Denmark - plan to go there, it's situated in the
southern part of Jutland (the main peninsula) about 200 miles from
Copenhagen (which is two Islands away, plan at least 6 hours for the
trip each direction and a whole day for the park if you bring kids).
Have fun.
Group soc.culture.nordic
article 962
From: [email protected] (Anders Andersson)
Subject: Re: Legoland Amusement Park
Organization: Uppsala University, Sweden
Those toy bricks were originally designed in Denmark and are now
produced by a Danish company. They have become sort of nursery default
paraphernalia here, often covering the floors like gravel. Excellent
stuff for young, prospective architects and mechanicians, as well as
for accidentally choking the vacuum cleaner.
Beginning with simple rectangular shapes, they have evolved and now
come in the form of doors, windows, rails, semaphores, 4.5V electric
motors, cog wheels, propeller shafts and people. Unfortunately, I would
say, since a blonde, smiling interlocking indian is far from as useful
as a plain yellow or red interlocking brick. Several competitors are
even marketing "Lego-compatible" building bricks, but I wouldn't trust
those for proper fitting without a decent support contract... :-)
> The mind boggles at the though of an entire amusement park built
>out of Lego. Sounds like a must see!
Well, it's pretty neat, like a Disneyland where most of the attractions
are too small and fragile to be used by real, non-interlocking kids.
The miniature copy of the Mt Rushmore monument is great, consisting of
some 2 million grey bricks I think. There is (or at least was) also an
Apollo rocket launch pad (scale perhaps 1:100). I haven't been there
for years; it wouldn't surprise me if they've got a shuttle by now.
Apart from the Lego model exhibition showing well-known buildings and
other things, there are also some ordinary non-Lego attractions to keep
the kids busy for a couple of hours. It makes a nice stop when driving
towards the continent, though I don't think I would cross the Atlantic
simply for seeing it... Location: Billund, somewhere in
southern-central Jutland (between Esbjerg and Aarhus approximately if
my memory serves me right).
--
Anders Andersson, Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University
Paper Mail: P.O. Box 520, S-751 20 UPPSALA, Sweden
Phone: +46 18 183170 EMail: [email protected]
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| Group soc.culture.nordic
article 976
From: [email protected] (Hans Huttel)
Subject: Re: Legoland Amusement Park
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U
Yep, it IS an amusement park in Billund, Jutland, with Lego models of
famous Danish buildings and the 700 wonders of the world, including the
Mount Rushmore reliefs and the Space Shuttle. Lego has a team of
designers whose only occupation is to come up with and build new Lego
miniatures for the amusement park.
Legoland also has all the traditional fairground attractions such as
rollercoasters, boats, and carrousels, only they all look like they are
made from huge Lego bricks. There is a traffic school for children
where the kids can get a driving licence. And, as the poster Craig
refers to mentions, there's even a special `Legoredo' `Wild West' town,
complete with a sheriff, horses and blonde Indians. Of course there is
a shop where one can buy all the latest Lego products.
Interestingly enough about 30 per cent of the visitors to Legoland are
adults not accompanied by children :-)
`Lego' was invented some fifty years ago by a Danish carpenter. The
name `Lego' comes from the Danish phrase `Leg godt' meaning `Play
well'. It wasn't until after WWII that Lego bricks were made of
plastic; up until then they were made of wood.
Unfortunately the emphasis in recent years has been more on ready-made
Lego toys than on the original Lego bricks. The simple bricks (which
were the only ones available and therefore the ones I played with when
I was a kid) really appealed to one's creativity. Lego used to be an
`educational' sort of toy, favoured by nursery schools. And Lego has
always made a point of not making realistic toy weapons. Then again, up
until some twenty years ago there was a rather `responsible' attitude
towards toys etc. in Denmark. For instance, the Donald Duck comics were
translated from English by school teachers!
As for Lego, nowadays the kids will just open the box and there's their
spaceship/fire engine/whatever - which you can of course take apart to
get some weird-looking bricks. Still, it will never be the same, I
guess. - BTW, I still have my old Lego bricks (a ton or so) lying
around somewhere; in Denmark they are passed on from generation to
generation, you know!
Regards
Hans
| Hans H\"{u}ttel, Office 1603 JANET: [email protected]
| LFCS, Dept. of Computer Science UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!lfcs!hans
| University of Edinburgh ARPA: hans%[email protected]
| Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, SCOTLAND (the country with England holding on to its tail)
|
| From: [email protected] (Jens Chr. Madsen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: LEGOLAND HELP
Date: 29 Nov 1994 18:59:18 GMT
Organization: The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA
Legoland is situated in the small town Billund in Jutland (the mainland
peninsula). The Lego factories and headquarters are also in Billund.
Lego was started in the 1950's (I think) by carpenter Ole Kirk
Christiansen, who was manufacturing wooden toys as a small side job.
Later they had much success with a certain plastic brick :-) The
Legoland theme park started around 1970. It is a fairly small area but
quite enjoyable. There are some good displays of Dutch land- scapes,
Norwegian villages, Danish castles etc. all in lego bricks. There are
also displays featuring Bangkok temples, Capitol Hill, Cape Canaveral,
and even Mount Rushmore (!), all in lego of course. And the wild west
area "Legoredo" (not in lego), the Pirate Boats and much more.
You can actually fly directly to Billund from many major cities in
northern Europe. What used to be a small private airstrip for the Lego
factory is now Denmark's second-busiest airport. Legoland is 5 minutes
walk from the airport, no taxi needed.
I don't have any phone or fax number handy, but this address will do:
Legoland (information)
DK-7190 Billund
Denmark
Hope this helps.
--
Jens Chr. Madsen
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