A Dutch-born dealer and a building that needed a model.

KAPLA is the work of one man, Tom van der Bruggen, whom the company calls a creator “of Dutch origin.” Dutch reports of his death, carried by the news agency ANP in February 2026, describe him as an antiques dealer who moved to France and came up with the planks when he wanted to make a model of the castle farmhouse he was restoring. English Wikipedia, citing the Dutch newspapers NRC (2026) and Trouw (2012), places that farm on the river Tarn in the south of France; French Wikipedia puts the castle project near Lincou, in the Aveyron.

English Wikipedia, citing Trouw, says he studied art history and ran an antique shop, and had hoped to build a castle from an early age. It says he turned an abandoned farm into his dream castle, with a carriage entrance, fountains and towers, and used wooden blocks to picture the finished building — but found that blocks could not stand in for its lintels, roofs and floors. The idea was to replace bulky building cubes with thin planks, French Wikipedia says. The company dates the brand to 1987, which English Wikipedia also gives; French Wikipedia’s infobox gives 1986 for the product, and says the company, Kapla France, was registered in 1994.

The name is Dutch. The company says KAPLA comes from “Kabouter Plankjes,” which it translates as “goblins’ planks” — kabouter being the Dutch word for a gnome or goblin.

Van der Bruggen died in February 2026, ANP reported on 16 February 2026, in Nice. Riviera Radio, reporting the same news on 17 February 2026, said he had founded Kapla in 1987 and had first used the small pine planks to build architectural models before seeing their potential as a construction toy. French Wikipedia lists him as the company’s owner and its director from 2000.

One plank, fixed proportions, no glue.

KAPLA’s product is a single shape. Every plank is the same size — 11.7 by 2.34 by 0.78 centimetres, according to English and French Wikipedia — and the company sets out the proportions behind it: three thicknesses make a width, five widths make a length, so fifteen thicknesses make a length. That ratio is the brand’s whole system. Because the pieces are interchangeable, they can be laid flat, stood on edge or set on end and still line up.

English Wikipedia sets that 15:3:1 ratio of length to width to thickness against the proportions of traditional building blocks, and notes that the long, flat shape lets the planks span openings as lintels, roofs and floors — the very parts of the castle model that first defeated ordinary blocks. Nothing holds the planks together but weight and balance. English Wikipedia notes that KAPLA needs no glue, screws or clips, and the planks are sold loose in boxes rather than as kits for a particular model.

The wood is pine from the Landes, the pine forest of south-western France, according to the company; French Wikipedia names the species as maritime pine. In its early days, the company says, it could not afford boxes and packed the planks in old washing-powder barrels.

KAPLA has also always been shown off at scale. The company says a monumental Eiffel Tower built from its planks was shown at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in the Louvre in 1988, that its first KAPLA activity centre opened in 1989, and that exports began in 1990, to Germany, Switzerland and Norway. It says a KAPLA centre in Paris rebuilt the façade of the Musée d’Orsay in planks in 2025.

The range has stayed close to the original plank. The company sells natural planks in cases, boxes and chests of different sizes; coloured planks, including an eight-colour “Octocolor” case, which it says are dyed with food-grade colouring; black-and-white sets; a stacking game called KAPLA Challenge; and books of model ideas. It describes the planks as “little identical planks of Landes pine, stacked simply without glue or fasteners,” and the pine as coming from “local, sustainably managed forests.”

Wooden toys and design.

The seven brands in this group are all toy names: Djeco, Janod, Tegu, Kapla, SmartGames, goki and Le Toy Van. Toy brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s idea to labels that now belong to larger groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a small independent shop to a department store.

A toy brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single object than by a box, a name, a colour and a way of drawing, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its toys are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its toys are made and how its boxes and logos have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Made in France and in Tangier.

KAPLA presents itself as a French company. French Wikipedia gives Kapla France’s base as Saint-Louis-de-Montferrand, in the Gironde near Bordeaux, and says the planks are partly made there, in south-western France, with production partly moved to Morocco because of demand abroad. The company itself says it opened a production unit in Tangier in the early 2000s. Both accounts point to the same split: French pine and a French head office, with part of the cutting done across the Strait of Gibraltar.

French Wikipedia lists the founder as owner of Kapla France, and the company tells its history through his story. Its website says it has been going for nearly forty years and runs KAPLA centres where visitors build together. It says that, despite its growth abroad, KAPLA has kept its essence as a free, open construction game, with, in the words of its English-language site, “no other rule than gravity.”

For a design guide, KAPLA shows how a single, exactly proportioned object can be the whole brand. Compare Djeco, another French toy maker, and Grimm’s, the German wooden-toy maker. For this guide we use Landes pine, pine bark and a brick red with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep KAPLA’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.