Children at Play

1973, the Department of the Environment.  The results of a survey into outdoor play on 15 local authority housing estates, all but one built during the 1960s.  Including Park Hill in Sheffield.

The text is fascinating and makes a good, dry, factual companion to Colin Ward's 'The Child in the City'.

Shocking fact: "architect designed" static concrete structures were not popular!

I ended up scanning pretty much the entire thing; I'll post more in due course.

the future has arrived

T-shirt Mysteries, part # 1.

Many, many years ago, my mother visited Paris and returned with a t-shirt bearing the design pictured above, which she presented to me as a gift. I have no idea why.

And, likewise, I have no idea what message this image was supposed to convey to Parisians, but I’ve always found it both intriguing and extremely sinister.

Now that the t-shirt has finally reached the stage where it is fit only for a dish-cloth, I thought it might be a good idea to scan the design and share it with the world, before it fades away entirely.

Answers on a postcard please, should you have any idea what it’s all about.

Robin's Nest vs Yoshi's Woolly World

No real reason.  But isn't that bit where Tony Britton slides into view and then PLOMP there's his face - isn't that weird?

I remember the theme and the prog itself imbuing in my suburban nipper brain a strange sense of "city melancholy".  Adult nights out in drab places etc.

Anyway, I was reminded of it by this dreamy piece of music from the Wii U game Yoshi's Woolly World:

The Magical Circle of the Mind

 

From 'The Purpose of Love', Richard Gardner, 1970.

Update: as seen on the cover of the King Crimson LP 'In the Wake of Poseidon':

Invisible Piano Jelly Mould

Flicking through this in the charity shop, I thought: "This really reminds me of something... ...but what?"

Aha!

Max Ernst: St Cecelia (The Invisible Piano); Long Live Love; Ubu Imperator [all 1923]

Max Ernst: Niceland (Pays sage) [1923]

See also the outcasts in Barbarella:

Poems

Collage from the archive.

Architecture 2000

I read the entire thing earlier this year and I can't remember a single bloody prediction.  It's much more about the trends of the time (Jencks' foreword is dated June 1969) and the theories / histories behind them.  So illustration-wise it's all Archigram, Metabolism, Yona Friedman, Frei Otto etc, and nowt much in the way of outlandish fancies / what ifs.

What's really interesting & fun is Jencks' six major traditions, and how he plays with them:

Note that Communism and Fascism do *not* share a group :)

And this is cool, courtesy the Rand Corporation:

Which of the Six Major Traditions do *you* fit into, dear reader?

Oh yeah, here's a flavour of the text:

Note: "we might well ask why the practice of futurism currently meets with such scepticism and hostility".