Aldo Van Eyck: Playgrounds - Hardcover

Roode, Ingeborg De; Lefaivre, Liane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9056622498 ISBN 13: 9789056622497

Publisher: NAI Publishers, 2002

Synopsis

No other book published in the last decade captures the spirit of post-war European reconstruction as wonderfully as The Playgrounds and the City. It is the story of how an inspired young Dutch architect, Aldo van Eyck, with a number of (mostly) female colleagues in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, put the needs of the child and neighbourhood democracy at the centre of town-planning and urban renewal. Most books about architecture or town planning are earnest treatises: this book sings. The Playgrounds and the City also doubled as the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 15 June–18 September 2002, one of the best exhibitions I have ever seen. The book has all the true qualities of a catalogue raisonné: a definitive list of playgrounds created in Amsterdam between 1947 and 1978, along with maps of the city, colour reproductions of some of van Eyck's original sketches for his revolutionary play equipment (which quickly became adopted across the world), plans of key street layouts demonstrating how play areas could act as social gathering places, facsimiles of letters from tenement dwellers to the Department of Public Works, petitioning for play space, and fabulous photographs of children at play, enjoying the freedom of the city. It is doubtful if we shall ever see such photographs again, as it has become almost impossible to photograph children at play today, principally for copyright and protective reasons. In fact many now argue that the age of documentary (or "street") photography is now at an end. Everybody claims to own the right to their own image, especially in the developed world, and fears of litigation have made the tradition of public photography almost redundant. This has real implications for urban democracy and design, though it is rarely discussed. Children at play have become almost invisible in modern towns and cities.

Edition details

• Publisher: NAI Publishers
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9056622498
• ISBN 13: 9789056622497
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120