“Costruire la storia, mattoncino su mattoncino”. La “Public Brickstory”: i Lego come strumento per raccontare la storia

Abstract

After presenting a framework of how the LEGO company represented historical and military themes in its sets, this article will analyze the sociocultural phenomenon of the use and collection of historical-themed legos, a phenomenon that is named Lego History. Secondly, it will examine some possible uses of legos – seen as a media with a strong hold upon the audience – in the Public History, considering the problems, methodologies, objectives, and presenting some projects started abroad. Finally, we will illustrate our project, Italian BrickHistory, a website that is proposed as a meeting point between “lego historical builders”, fans, historians and cultural operators who carry out or intend to start Public History projects with legos.

Keywords

• construction toys
• game-based learning
• lego education
• lego history
• public history