The Secret Lego Vault Is Real. Every Lego Fan's Holy Grail

Hidden like the treasure of the Templars, inaccessible like the Vatican's secret archives - yet it really exists. The Lego Vault, the holy grail of Billund fans, is a place where nostalgia meets cataloging perfection, and every set has its own story.

Everyone has places on their "must see" list that they would like to visit at least once in their life. In my case, it would be the legendary Abbey Road recording studio, the Haribo jelly factory and... the famous Lego vault.

Yes, yes. This is not a lie. The place where Lego stores almost every set ever made actually exists.

Illustrative photo / photo: Unsplash, Mourizal Zativa

A quick history lesson: In 1932, carpenter Ole Kirk Kristiansen began making wooden toys in a workshop next to his home in Billund , Denmark.

When wood became scarce after the war, Kristiansen invested in an injection molding machine. Thanks to this, in 1949 the world saw the first plastic blocks assembled using a characteristic system of studs and corresponding sockets . Today, after many improvements and the addition of minifigures , we know them as... Lego blocks .

Although the factory burned down twice, Kristiansen rebuilt it both times. Today, both the workshop and Kristiansen's house are still standing. Underneath, there is this wonderful place, the Lego treasury, containing over 8,000 sets dating back to the 1960s.

- The vault is a unique place and is generally only opened to guests with a business reason, said Kristian Reimer Hauge from Lego in an interview.

Unless you’re working on important research or archiving… Accessing the vault can be difficult. If by some miracle you do manage to do so, Hauge recommends checking out the sets from the five years after his birthday. That’s where you’ll find a real nostalgia trip.

Luckily, a virtual version of the vault is available to anyone who decides to take a trip to the Lego House . There, you can choose any year and view every set Lego released at that time in 3D. What’s more, the Lego Inside Tour program lets you tour Kristiansen’s original home and see for yourself how the iconic bricks are made today.

Illustrative photo / photo: Unsplash, Uladzislau Petrushkevich

And yet, as a big fan of building blocks from Denmark , I imagine what would happen if I had the key to the secret vault and could spend the night there with my sons. There would be a lot of cleaning 😉