Adopt an Artifact: Architectural Toy Collection

George Wetzel began collecting building toys in the early 1980s after noticing that the toys he was buying for his children were strikingly different in both material and style from the ones he had played with as a child. Over the next 30 years, he built one of the largest toy collections in the United States, reflecting not only the economic and social dimensions of the American toy industry but also the evolving relationship with architecture and building crafts. 

Building toys date back to the mid-nineteenth century. Early toys, such as building blocks, provided children with simple materials to assemble structures. By the twentieth century, the consumer market expanded well beyond blocks as production advancements allowed for more sophisticated toys. Framing toys such as Erector sets, which relied on lightweight linear elements, were soon followed by plastic building toys that flooded the market by the 1950s.  

From a French Le Maconor construction set to beloved LEGO® bricks, the National Building Museum’s collection demonstrates how new techniques in plastic molding enabled toy makers to create a variety of colorful, durable, interlocking brick construction toys. It also shows how innovations in design were replicated and tweaked by companies worldwide, pushing the boundaries of what building toys could do and advancing new ways to learn, play, and engage with architecture, design, and construction.  

In 2006, the Museum acquired Wetzel’s collection of more than 2,300 toys dating from the 1860s to the 1990s, which illustrate the breadth of building toys that children have played with over the decades. With its variety of brands, materials, and packaging, the collection offers significant insight into the national heritage of children’s toys and manufacturing, and American building arts and professions. 

While the toys in Wetzel’s collection are favorites among visitors and the Museum’s Collections team, many are high-risk due to the fragility and light-sensitive nature of early packaging. The collection contains a variety of different materials, including wooden toys, stone blocks, metal toys, and early plastic pieces. Most are still housed in their original, now-crumbling cardboard boxes, many of which are covered in fragile, light-sensitive graphics that are fading with each passing year.  

Help us preserve this history! 

The toys in Wetzel’s collection offer more than nostalgia; they tell a vivid story about how generations of children have learned, played, and imagined the built world. But many of these unique artifacts are at risk due to fragile materials and deteriorating packaging. 

Through the Museum’s Adopt an Artifact program, you can play a direct role in safeguarding this history. Your support helps conserve rare and delicate objects, ensuring they’re preserved for future exhibitions, research, and generations of curious builders. 

Click here to Adopt an Artifact and help protect this legacy. 

The National Building Museum is home to the nation’s foremost archive of American architectural and design heritage. The Adopt an Artifact program allows you to directly support the proper care and preservation of objects with critical conservation needs, helping the Museum continue its mission to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build. To support this initiative, click here.