#modernistplay

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The playground project

Second, expanded edition.Burkhalter, Gabriela, editor.; Shields, Andrew, translator.; Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, host institution.Zürich : JRP/Ringier 2018

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good morning, brutalism concrete playground @ Leeds. Photo by  James W Bell (Good Honest Iago) - Leeds

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Playground for the Aumatten Primary School in Reinach near Basel by Michael Grossert (1926-2014), erected 1967 Photos from Pinterest, unsourced

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If the modernist imperative was to make play environments "inaginative", it followed that the "imagination" at play should be that of the child, not that of the architect.

Roy Kozlovsky, Adventure Playgrounds and Postwar Reconstruction. In Designing Modern Childhoods, Gutman and de Coninck-Smith editors. Rutgers University Press, 2008, p. 174

[modernistplay]

Isamu Noguchi

Sculpture from "Phaedra", 1958  Screen sculptures from "Judith", 1950 

[modernistplay]

Playground in Warsaw, 1959 Source: Cornell University Library // The John Reps Urban Explorer Collection documents planning practices and responses to urban issues from 15 countries. Taken and gathered on globe-spanning travels undertaken by Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning Emeritus Professor John W. Reps from 1958 onwards, the collection's 1,355 photographs, plans, and aerial images have been composed to support and advance instruction and research on the history of urban planning and comparative international or domestic spatial development, and to celebrate Emeritus Professor Reps's pioneering contribution to the field.

[modernistplay]

Nursery #33 in Moscow, Russia. 1934. Art deco meets constructivist architecture

Название: детский сад № 333 Адрес: ул. Маршала Василевского, 11 Год постройки: 1934-й Что сейчас: детский сад

[modernistplay]

Charles Forberg. Cypress Hills Playground, Brooklyn, New York. 1963

In 1964 Forberg was commissioned by MoMA, along with the Citizens' Committee for Children and the Park Association of New York City, to design a playground at the Cypress Hills Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, a high-rise development housing more than 1,400 families. Forberg's circular environment, seventy-two feet in diameter, was dominated by a forest of seven-foot-tall vertical concrete slabs that encouraged running and hiding while providing shade and shelter. The playground was admired by critics when it opened in 1967, but there were serious safety concerns, primarily regarding parental sight lines, and the site was eventually renovated with standard equipment.

Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000, July 29–November 5, 2012

... at Cypress Hills, the museum’s Junior Council worked with the New York City Housing Authority and the Park Association of New York City to commission three play spaces. There is nothing to indicate that the other two were ever constructed.  

… Forberg, … placed all of the play elements into a 72-foor-doameter circle (abt 22m, my note). Using no fencing and creating several patterns with asphalt block paving, he accentuated idea that van Eyck had employed on a smaller space. Forberg tied to offer varied experiences. There was a maze formed by vertical, 7-foot-high (~2m, my note) cast-concrete slabs. These had variable widths and were not set uniformly apart, making it possible for children to have a continuing sense of discovery. There were also three circular enclosure: one slightly banked for water play; one for a tower and slide; and one for a series of concrete half-cylinders for both climbing and hiding. A centralized spherical lighting fixture illuminated the entire site. This lighting devise accentuated the sculptural aspect of the playground, especially when seen from the nearby apartments.

He (Forberg) believed that children would be encouraged to move throughout what he hoped would be “rich and varied spaces”. He envisioned abstraction as the means through which kids could make their own choices.

American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space. Susan G. Solomon. UPNE, 2005. Pgs: 66-67