Melbourne has welcomed the Australian-first instalment of an international exhibition on the design of playgrounds. Charting what the exhibition’s organisers describe as a “a unique chapter” in art, design, urbanism and activism from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries, The Playground Project is aimed at bringing to life the history of the playground from the 1930s to the present day.
The newly opened exhibition, commissioned by Moonee Valley City Council (MVCC), guest curated by Swiss urban planner and political scientist Gabriela Burkhalter, and designed by Melbourne-based practice Board Grove Architects, is located at Incinerator Gallery in the city’s west.
Mayor of MVCC Ava Adams said, “Playgrounds are the setting of formative childhood experiences, and we are proud to spotlight the creative and social forces that shape them.”
The travelling show comes directly from the Kunsthalle Zurich, following several major presentations abroad, including at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, the Baltic in Newcastle, the Garden of Unaccompanied Children at Serra dei Giardini in Venice, the German Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt and Konsthall in Lund.
Burkhalter said this iteration of The Playground Project is set to be uniquely Australian. “At the beginning of the playground movement, community groups in countries such as the US, England, Germany and Australia responded to the challenges of growing urban environments. Playgrounds were introduced to offer children safe spaces for activity, learning, and social connection and increasingly linked to creativity, nature, and the benefits of unstructured exploration.”
“The Playground Project in Melbourne celebrates the importance of children’s play while reimagining the design of our public spaces and neighbourhoods,” she added.
Large-scale playground installations located inside and outside the Incinerator Gallery space are designed to immerse young visitors in an art and design experience, while older attendees are encouraged to examine how designers, educators and planners collaborate to create public spaces, where children can gather, learn and grow.
Exhibition designers Holly Board and Pete Grove commented, “Through the design of the exhibition, we aimed to make a captivating experience for children and adults alike that complimented the sensibility of childhood play and imagination – fun, surprise, curiosity and otherworldliness.”
“The story of the playgrounds is displayed at varying scales from billboard size to small images. Large format images create occupied backgrounds to playgrounds with children playing and are democratic in that they are visible for all ages. Other images are hung low and scaled to the size of small children making them feel connected and immersed in the exhibition. There is an intentional lively colour presence to the exhibition, with the tones shifting through the exhibition to connect the imagery and historical play periods to the wider spatial experience.”
The project presents a creative collaboration by Australian visual artist Simon Terrill and UK-based architecture studio Assemble, titled The Brutalist Playground, which was originally commissioned by the Royal Institute of British Architects to be “part sculpture, part architectural installation, all play,” the release notes.
An instructional artwork with a modular social seating element, titled Round Table, also features. Conceived as a gathering space and a play sculpture, the work is a collaboration by interior designer Mary Featherston and artist Emily Floyd, the latter of whom also presents a selection of screenprints from her Ripple series.
Outside, Board Grove Architects’ The Ringtales Playground offers a site-specific and yet relocatable playground exploring nature play while paying tribute to the architecture of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, designers of the original incinerator.
Board and Grove note that their concept celebrates sand and water – elements that “have a long history in children’s play spaces, dating back to the 1800s when Fredrich Frobel, widely considered the creator of the kindergarten, promoted the benefits brought by playing with sand in the open air. Then in the early 1900s the coupling of water with sand play was embraced in Scandinavia with many landscape playgrounds appearing.”
The resulting playground combines three tales, each from different historical periods and conceptual positions, to comprise a sand and water-based experience inspired by the character of the Maribyrnong River.
Incinerator Gallery notes that one of the highlights of the exhibition is the Lozziwurm Playground by Swiss artist Yvan Pestalozzi, which has been acquired by the gallery as a permanent work that will remain for children to play on after the exhibition concludes. MVCC has also commissioned a First Nations playable public art sculpture by Edwina Green that will take up residence alongside the Maribyrnong River in September.
The exhibition is open from 28 June until 12 October, and includes a variety of public programs.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
