UNS Talks about Playgrounds UNS Talks about Playgrounds
News - 5 November 2018

UNS Talks about Playgrounds


 

Join us on Instagram and Facebook Live on December 6th at 6PM CET, as we invite author Denisa Kollarova to discuss the playgrounds of Aldo van Eyck.

Van Eyck's playgrounds were born out of a reaction against the post-war functionalist city plan for Amsterdam, and marked a break in the CIAM congress - a prominent engine of Functionalism at large. In that sense, the playgrounds take on a much larger project than the limits of their particular sites. They are decidedly urban and socio-cultural interventions.

At the same time, they are sites that activate the imagination and cultivate the creativity of children through the design of their forms. Non-hierarchical and minimal, they encourage growth, interaction and social cohesion between children. Of the 700 that Van Eyck designed from Amsterdam, only 17 remain as some of the most significant, political and social pieces of architecture in the city.