The image reminds me of some of the crazy things I did as a kid — climbing on roofs, climbing to the top of really tall trees, swinging from ropes, walking underground through sewers, hopping freight trains — you name it, I did it. It wasn’t that the kids of my block were poor or deprived. We had nice swings and sliding boards at the local school playground. It’s just that we preferred to invent our playgrounds out of the things we could find and invent. We preferred to ratchet up our play for the adrenalin rush — something a playground swing long quit doing, no matter how high you could go.
The following images begin with make-do playgrounds (as in the photographs by Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others), but are followed by some unique and creative playground structures, some of which are mid-century modernist designs. As these images attest, playground equipment can be as simple as a tractor tire or mimic the amorphic abstraction of Jean Arp. So whether you are a landscape architect, a designer or just an inventive kid, all that really matters boils down to one simple question: do children like to play on it?
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.01_525.jpg)
Boys Playing Over Doorway, 1940
Gelatin Silver Print
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.02_525.jpg)
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Children Playing in the Ruins
Seville, 1933
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.03_525.jpg)
Children Play Around An Impromptu Bonfire Site, 1989
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.04_525.jpg)
Jungle Gym of Tires by Paul Hogan
Photo by Paul Hogan
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.05_525.jpg)
Children Play Around An Impromptu Bonfire Site, 1989
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.06_525.jpg)
By M. Paul Friedberg (b. 1931), landscape architect, New York
Jacob Riis House, New York, 1966
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.07_525.jpg)
Super Long Sliding Board; Wien, Donaupark
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.08_525.jpg)
Photographer Not Listed
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.09_525.jpg)
Early Ropes Structure for Kids, by Joe Brown (1909-1985), c. 1954
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.10_525.jpg)
By Kuro Kaneko, landscape architect; Teppozu playground, Tokyo: mound
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.11_525.jpg)
Ledermann/Trachsel, 1959: Spielplastik von Møller Nielsen
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.12_525.jpg)
Ledermann/Trachsel, 1959: Spielplastik von Møller Nielsen
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.13_525.jpg)
How to Install a Tire for Play by Paul Hogan
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.14_525.jpg)
An inventive use of automobile tires
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.15_525.jpg)
Abandoned amusement park in Chernoble, Russia
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.16_525.jpg)
Climbing Structure; Usedom, Germany, 2011
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.17_525.jpg)
Pipe Structure, Tbilisi, 2013
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.18_525.jpg)
Forgotten Playground; Gdansk, Poland
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.19_525.jpg)
Lozziwurm, Schützenmattpark, Basel: 2011 demontiert
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.20_525.jpg)
City Museum, St. Louis, MO, Bob Cassilly, creator
Photo by Scott the Travel Guy
![The Imagination of Playgrounds](/media/images/04.14.13.21_525.jpg)
Turtle Park, St. Louis, MO, Bob Cassilly, creator
Comments [4]
I'm 57 and the world has changed, and in this respect, I don't believe for the better. The new playgrounds I've seen, designed by intellectuals and behaviorists and designers attempting to "enforce imagination" while limiting liability, have almost all failed in my eyes. Like the final shot—smiling child aside, child conscious of being photographed—it is an adults fantasy of childhood pleasures.
I don't think I'm being nostalgic when I say that later attempts at playgrounds are really attempts to domesticate and delimit a child's/teenager' sense of fun, excitement, and most important, danger.
04.14.13
01:54
did you go?" "Out" "What did you do?" "Nothing" by Robert Paul Smith.
04.16.13
05:34
04.18.13
03:33
04.23.13
10:54