Lego - Not Just Kid Stuff

In 1949 a Danish toy company named LEGO (from the Danish words "LEg GOdt" (or "play well") introduced its plastic LEGO Automatic Binding Brick, featuring four and eight studs. Today the company based in the town of Billund produced 19 billion LEGO elements every year. Both the British Association of Toy Retailers and Fortune magazine have called the little plastic bricks the "Toy of the Century."

The influence of Lego can be seen not only in toy store shelves but on the catwalk. Here a model presents a creation by French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, in Paris, October 3, 2008.

A model presents a creation by French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac during the Spring/Summer 2009 ready-to-wear collection show in Paris, October 3, 2008.

A model presents a creation by French designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac during the spring/summer 2009 Vodafone Athens Collection shows at the Technopolis in Athens on October 11, 2008.

In 1949 a Danish toy company named LEGO (from the Danish words "LEg GOdt" (or "play well") introduced its plastic LEGO Automatic Binding Brick, featuring four and eight studs. Today the company based in the town of Billund produced 19 billion LEGO elements every year. Both the British Association of Toy Retailers and Fortune magazine have called the little plastic bricks the "Toy of the Century."

A picture taken on April 12, 2009 of This sculpture of Jesus Christ at a church in Vasteras, Sweden, is entirely made out of Lego construction bricks. The nearly 6-foot-tall statue, a copy of Thorvaldsen's "Resurrected Christ," took parishioners a year and a half to construct, using 30,000 tiny plastic pieces.

A closeup view of the Lego Jesus Christ.

Tourists visit the National Building Museum's exhibit "Lego Architecture: Towering Ambition" in Washington on August 10, 2010.

The world's tallest tower created from Lego bricks is completed in the Dutch town of Limmen, June 6, 2010. The Lego tower measures 30.52 meters (slightly over 100 feet), breaking the previous record set in Oslo, Sweden by almost 12 inches.

A man measures a tower created from Lego bricks in Limmen, Netherlands.

A visitor at London's Hayward Gallery examines a Lego bust of singer Freddie Mercury by the artist Craig Stevens, August 28, 2008.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plays with pupils of 627th Education Center in a Lego class, in Moscow, April 23, 2010.

A bust of German-born physicist Albert Einstein, made of Lego bricks adorns the entrance of Berlin's Legoland Discovery Center, March 29, 2007.

A visitor at the 2009 Toy Fair trade exposition at the Jacob Javits Center in New York sits next to a Lego Man.

Linda and Ed Kolle walk past a replica of the United States Capitol building at Legoland in Carlsbad, Calif., in this March 1999 file photo.

"Who ya' gonna call?" The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from "Ghostbusters" is recreated at Brickfair, a convention of 10,000 Lego enthusiasts, many of whom are "Adult Fans of Legos" (a.k.a. AFOLs).

Nick Sawaya, a self-described "Brick Artist," uses the little plastic building blocks as his medium in life-size sculptures.

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Sawaya's works can be playful and surreal, even disturbing.

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Each of Sawaya's sculptures is made solely with regular square and rectangular pieces.

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Sawaya, who left his career as a corporate lawyer in order to build on his talent as an artist, said this sculpture was very personal: "This one truly is my story to a certain extent, breaking out of where I was to try and do something new."

brickartist.com

By CBSnews.com producer David Morgan