Video through the LEGO Vault

[gylman]

http://gizmodo.com/5...y?autoplay=true

Also many of the comments below the article are worth reading.

Sorry if this has been posted before.

Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History

I have to confess that life hasn't been very good lately. Work around the clock, not enough free time, trying to have kids and crashing badly... all while moving to a country I don't particularly like, away from my best friends and family. Maybe that's why visiting Lego's Memory Lane-the secret vault guarding almost every Lego set ever manufactured-touched me in a way I didn't expect. This wasn't amazement or simple awe. I was already astonished to no end by the tour of the Lego factory. No, this was something else, something bigger than the impressive view of the 4,720 Lego sets inside this lair. These weren't just simple boxes full of bricks. These were tickets to ride a time portal to emotions and simpler days long forgotten.

I didn't know that when I was curiously ogling the oldest sets, from the 1950s. Jette Orduna-the curator for the Idea House, Lego's history museum set in the old family house of the owner, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen-was explaining the first Lego sets, obviously enjoying my enthusiasm. "Here's the wooden box that some shops around Denmark had, usually hairdressers or general stores" she would say while carefully opening it for me to see its contents, simple red and white bricks without tubes, some of them with windows on them, "they contained individual Lego bricks. Back then, parents bought them regularly to their children, so they could keep expanding their Lego system." Then she would turn her attention to another set, as I kept asking what was this or that. "Yes, it's called 'electronic' because this train could be activated by whistling," she would explain, whistling herself.

I was just enjoying it like an archeologist. Her explanations, the cool box designs, the quick evolution of the first years... I was amazed by the ingenuity of it all, curious about the origins of the myth. But that was it. Just simple curiosity. Until we got to the 1970s.

Knowing my previous comments, Jette went straight to one of the shelves, at the end of the long aisle. She looked up and down, her lips pressed together, concentrated in finding something. While she was doing this I was filming around, eyes wide open, thinking "oh, is that?" and "nah, that can't be... can it?" my excitement growing by the second. It was then when she took out a large rectangular box with yellow sides, saying "a-ha! Here it is."

I turned around and I saw what she had in her hands: the Lego Space Galaxy Explorer.

And then it hit me. Lift off. Godspeed. Boom.

A wave of emotions took control, hitting my head like a Lego Airbus 380. Dozens of images started to appear in my head, Polaroids of Xmas and birthdays that I thought were faded, completely fresh, color-corrected, and restored by the damn Lucasfilm for a Blu-ray re-release. I could even see the Hollywood quote whores saying "Better than ever!", "The past never looked so good!", and "Five stars!" embossed in silver on the special edition boxed set. There was my mother and father-who built a huge Lego ferris wheel and the Blue Train for us when we were too young to build it, then never stop giving us new sets every year-and then my two brothers and my sister, playing on the rug, building all kind of new and wonderful constructions populated by the strangest creatures. And that smell. The perfect smell of Lego bricks.

You know what I'm talking about, those were the days and all that jazz. But for real. Feelings and moments from times when everything was innocent and your only concern was your bike, a big carpet full of Lego bricks, and the amount of cocoa in your cereals.

After that, it was one wave after the other, jumping from Lego Space to Lego Technic to Lego Town to Lego Castle and Lego Pirates and Lego Star Wars. Each set a memory, a particular Kodak moment blurred by the occasional teary eye.

Soon, too soon, it was over. And as I was walking up the stairs, back to the present, slowly letting the past fade back into the treasure chest, I thought: "This must be it. This must be reason why Lego is so loved by almost everyone in the planet." Sure they are fun. The details, the incredible designs, the way you physically touch them, how they make you use both your hands, creativity, and logic. All that is there, all are parts of their universal appeal.

But there's a lot more. Something more fundamental, bigger than the sum of all those qualities. Underneath all that there's a primal connection, something that makes everyone tune into the childhoods when they see the bricks, and get back into brighter, careless moments, even at the subconscious levels.

And thinking that, I joined Jette and Jan in the Real World, with a grin on my face. Life wasn't that bad, after all. Not if something as simple as a colored brick can make me smile again.

I couldn't think of a better song to go with this story than the Johnny Cash version of Memories Are Made of This, from the album Unchained. Sadness and happiness at the same time, bringing so many other memories on its own. You can buy it at Amazon or the iTunes Music Store. In fact, get the whole album while you are it, because it's amazing (and so are the rest of the American Recordings series).

Edited March 18, 2013 by Fugazi
added original article

[PSPguy]

So many memories...

[Flatfoot Thompsen]

So... much... LEGO! I wish that was my closet.

[Dr. Brick]

That is so beautiful!

Dr. Brick

[Deinonychus]

Great video

The Johnny Cash song playing in the background was almost insidious for it's combined emotional impact. It's amazing how seeing clean, fresh, boxed sets as recent as those first Star Wars sets can still release a wave of nostalgia. I'd be afraid to touch anything in there. Well, afraid, and I'd refrain just out of pure respect and reverence

[Capt. Bluebeard]

Probably the most epic video of all time!

These guys should do a deal with TLC and make an official LEGO museum...or maybe they shouldn't because I'd probably steal it all!

Bluebeard, out-

Edited June 24, 2008 by Capt. Bluebeard

[Holodoc]

Hehe, sorry for all you guys who could not make it to our event this year.

WE HAVE BEEN THERE!

And we have seen all those lovely sets with our own eyes!

Some EB´ers agreed that there has to be an even bigger vault somewhere else , because there is only little space left in this room.

This was the most interesting section:

[Plural]

Cool video, the contents of thats vault must be worth well into the £100,000s.

[Fluyt]

Cool video, the contents of thats vault must be worth well into the £100,000s.

Probably a fair amount more, judging by the very expensive misb sets like 375, 12v trains and the monorails to name a few and there are also multiples of at least some sets there.

They must have multiple vaults, with multiple sets, since it would be a disaster if there was just one and it got wrecked somehow.

[BerndDasBrot]

oh how I wish i didn't unlearn crying. There's no way to express my current mood...

a truly beautiful place to be!

[JimBee]

that article was so touching... faded polaroids of memories are exactly how it is for me... ah memories...

[snefroe]

hm.... this vault is basically just a VIP vault, imo. it's not Lego's archive. I've been there a few times now and sure, it looks as if this vault has quite a lot of sets, but several are missing as well and it's not entirely sorted per year. The story goes that all sets lego produces for the global market end up in this room.

The vault is "owned" by Lego's legal department, in case Lego needs to be able to show/build specific sets in the context of a law suit against piracy,... So it's not Lego's archive where they keep all documents and sets ever created, but it's most defenetely worth a visit. Still, only a few people get in...

[Kahgarak]

''I'm getting emotional''

I hear ya buddy!

Look at all that Space. Too bad I didn't exist yet when they were still out in stores .

[Tom_castlefan]

An amazing insight... I wish I had all of those sets

Ah, nostalgia...

Tom

[Dwarvenlord]

*Sight*... so beatiful

[Technix]

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/this-underground-secret-vault-contains-all-lego-sets-in-1584117114?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

:cry_happy: :cry_happy: :cry_happy: :cry_happy:

OMG.. dont know what to say..!

[TeufelHund]

As someone who has worked in museums for years developing storage facilities the way they house their collection is a bit of a worry - everything seems to be stacked on top of each other meaning boxes will crush and deform with time, things are stored behind other things meaning locating items will be problematic and there will be a lot of double-handling needed to retrieve material and the fact they handle everything without gloves means that oil and grime will tranfer easily from people's hands to the collection. The use of compactus-style shelving is good as it saves space but it looks to me if they're serious about protecting this collection they probably need to expand the storage space and spread the collection out a bit more. I'm not sure what there Air-conditioning is set at but longevity could also be improved by controlling the temperature and humidity levels as well.

Despite this - it was very nice to see the original Yellow Castle "in the flesh". If only my parents had given me that when I asked I might never have come out of my Dark Ages...

[LEGO Historian]

The LEGO Vault does NOT have one of every LEGO set ever produced. Part of the problem was that TLG didn't always save a copy of each early LEGO set. So there are probably at least 50 sets that are not in the LEGO collections. When putting together my Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collectors Guide as a DVD/download, the folks at TLG were very gracious in giving me copies of images of many sets that I didn't have an image for. However, there are many sets that they still don't have, but have been attempting to buy them on the secondary market. Many of the sets were produced by licensees in Norway, USA/Canada and Britain/Australia, so part of the problem is that the existence of these sets is not known to the folks at TLG. I've shown them images of many sets that were unfamiliar to them.... and gave them a copy of the image to add to their Archives. Here's a pic taken a few years ago of the vault... and yes.... they needed to do a better job of stacking sets....