Lego Island

Step back, Jacobsen, Utzon, Kjaerholm, Wegner, and all you other great Danes. When it comes to Danish design domination, the unrivaled champ is undoubtedly the almighty plastic brick—Lego.

Billund, Denmark, could easily be considered the prefab capital of the world: Each year, its factories pump out more than 19 billion modules, which are sent around the world and pieced together by more than 400 million people.

Billund is, after all, the home of Lego, one of the most intensely used building blocks on Earth. The company’s 2,350 different pieces and 52 colors form a nearly infinite number of combinations—–and for as many purposes, from creating a land of shipwrecked pirates to assembling an actual kitchen island in a Paris apartment.

The idea for Simon Pillard and Philippe Rossetti’s Lego kitchen sprouted five years ago, when Pillard put 500 blocks and a day’s worth of work into building a Lego-legged chair. The designing duo—–who create products together under the name Munchausen—–recently gave the seat a colorful companion. They covered their kitchen island—–a simple wooden block—–with 20,000 Lego pieces.

“We design mostly in black and white,” Rossetti says of their professional work. “Our apartment is our place for emotional release, the liberation of colors.”

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