Playgrounds – Froebel Decade

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a visionary sculptor and landscape garden designer whose innovative playgrounds and playground equipment designs are a fusion of earth sculpture and interactive play.

isamu_noguchi_6 — Isamu Noguchi’s recently restored Atlanta Playscapes serves as a model for playgrounds of the future.

“I think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious, and evocative; thus educational.” Isamu Noguchi

The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum has reopened in New York after a renovation. Noguchi viewed the earth itself as the original sculpture medium. He felt that the ground embodies the spirit of creativity that inspired early humans and suggested a way for them to get control of their spiritual existence, to arrange your inner landscape you must sculpt your outer landscape.

isamu_noguchi_2 — Playgrounds and playground equipment designed by Noguchi were works of art meant to be interactive, suggest activities without precisely demanding them, lead to a physical but creative use of each structure, and invite all levels of participation. Photo by Kevin Noble

Many distinguished educators, child welfare specialists and civic groups had seen the model for the United Nations Playground had hailed it as the only creative step made in the field in decades.

This design for the United Nations Playground was a composite; part garden, part surrealist sculpture and part bas relief on a monumental scale. ''A jungle gym is transformed into an enormous basket that encourages the most complex ascents and all but obviates falls. In other words, the playground, instead of telling the child what to do (swing here, climb there) becomes a place for endless exploration, of endless opportunity for changing play.'' –Noguchi, 1952 — This 1952 design for the United Nations Playground was part garden, part surrealist sculpture and part bas relief on a monumental scale. A jungle gym is an enormous basket, that encourages the most complex ascents and all but obviates falls. The playground becomes a place for endless exploration, of endless opportunity for changing play.

His last playground design in New York City’s Riverside Park was the fullest evocation of a playground as an art form, an inviting creative play space that would provide not just interactivity but beauty and a place to sit for people of all ages.