What's in Your Backyard?

So the Jones' are at it again. So they think that the new swing set they had installed for little Timmy is the best in the whole neighborhood, eh? And now Jone's keeps rubbing it in how sorry your own Junior's tire-swing is. Well you'll show HIM who should do the bragging... Just wait until the delivery truck brings this to your front door!

It wasn't supposed to be an ongoing series, but I have an update to my posts last summer on the influence of Mid-Century design and fads on children's playground equipment. But this has to be added! The very retro-looking robot slide above was taken from an manufacturer's catalog dated to the 1970's, obviously still influenced by the space-madness of the 50's and 60's. If you Google "robot playground" it appears that there's still one or two surviving examples hopefully still out there intriguing young and old alike today. So sad that a bunch of busy-bodies had to tear down most all this wonderful equipment from our city parks and school playgrounds as being unsafe. Silly adults!

But on to the link that I've included! Along with Giganta there's a rocket slide, lunar lander and a very Trekkie looking starship jungle gym. Now I'm not exactly sure where these images were originally posted, but I've seen this catalog first at Retro Playground Equipment @ Plaid Stallions along with other swell examples of jungle gyms shaped like castles, tugboats and a few which, umm, may be hard to describe.

The Divine Caroline.com article has a large number of additional images: rocket slides, barrel runs... all kinds of goodies to get the inner-child all excited. So just follow the link if you're ready for more. But be warned - there's much packed on this site in 3-parts... 70's Playgrounds @ DivineCaroline.com

Space-Age Playlands

Yes.... there's More ;)


An article in Life Magazine "Playgrounds take a Space-age Spin", March 15, 1963

Rocket Climbers

So much to be added and so little time...

Photographic series by Lauren Orchowski - Rocket Climbers

Bouncy Rocket Rider

DSCF2305, originally uploaded by Nels_P_Olsen.

From Nels P. Olsen's Flickr photostream of vintage rocket slides & saucer go-rounds. An absolutely staggering collection to see here from a trip Mr. Olsen took across Iowa on a search for vintage playground equipment.

Saul Bass Playscape 1961

Saul Bass Playscape 1961, originally uploaded by sandiv999.

Woohoo! I would have loved the plank-board jump into the sandpit idea when I was a kid. The builders probably would have had to conveniently locate this park next door to a hospital ;X

Children's Play Sculpture in Czechoslavakia

Children's Play Sculpture in Czechoslavakia, originally uploaded by sandiv999.

Robert Winston Play Sculpture 1961

Robert Winston Play Sculpture 1961, originally uploaded by sandiv999.

Noguchi Playground Art

Remember all those funky designs in your playground as a kid? The equipment that you hardly ever see anymore made into freeformed concrete shapes such resembling large potato chips with holes or some other other-worldly half-dream, half-nightmare form as if from a Dali painting. I do... we had the big potato chip in the schoolyard and even more creations at the city parks (until city officials grew nervous about liability and replaced them with wall-to-wall foam padded safe parks).

Did you know that some of the top designers of the day worked on these creations? Here's a fine example of that playground art designed by none other than Isamu Noguchi.


The Noguchi Playground was the 1952 model made for the United Nations. Yes, apparently even the highest representatives of the world at that time needed a playground. This area was even to be given a special international diplomatic designation, but alas the park was not to become a reality, thanks to Noguchi's NYC nemesis, Robert Moses.

As it happened, Moses's blocking of the UN Playground was the fuel for MoMA championing the design, which in turn led to an exhibition at Creative Playthings' Madison Avenue toyshop. So as it happened in 1953, Creative Playthings approached Noguchi with a proposal for designing commercial playground equipment for thier new spinoff division, Play Sculptures. And the rest (I assume) is history.

You can find a whole heaping collection of Noguchi's broad range of work here on Raimist's Noguchi uploads at Flickr.

For THE book of Noguchi's creativity you can go to Amazon and purchase Ana Maria Torres' 2000 book Isamu Noguchi: A Study of Space.

Still here??? Why not go look at some more mid-century playground designs? Go to Aqua-Velvet.com fast!


Thanks to Daddytypes.com for some background info.