Anna van Lingen and Denisa Kollarova join us from the Netherlands to discuss the work of renowned Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck, whose legacy they explore in their forthcoming book, Aldo van Eyck: Seventeen Playgrounds.
Van Eyck’s exceptional designs have influenced generations of children at play in Amsterdam. After the second World War, van Eyck dedicated himself to developing a web of over 700 playgrounds scattered across the city, in order to give children their own recognizable domain.
Nowadays only a few play elements remain. Throughout his career, he encouraged his contemporaries to move away from rigid forms of Functionalism and as critic Hans Ibelings wrote “subverted mainstream thinking by championing place over space”.
Anna and Denisa will discuss key concepts of Aldo van Eyck’s output in relation to current day playspaces. They will revisit the work of past architects, artists and thinkers who have laid claim on the playground, seeing these spaces as much more than simple structures and colourful compositions.
Read a series of blog posts about Aldo van Eyck by Anna van Lingen and Denisa Kollarova’s on the Platform Residency blog
Denisa Kollarova lives and works in Amsterdam, where she and Anna van Lingen began their collaboration after graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2013. Ruins, public spaces, social architecture, city mapping and utopian architectural planning are core topics which keep her curiosity alive in various books, exhibitions and lectures. In addition to Seventeen Playgrounds her ongoing projects include Under My Own Construction Of Ruins and Migration Of Form.
Anna van Lingen is a graphic designer working on a number of self-initiated projects which investigate town planning, architecture and the aging of cities and buildings. She works closely with Denisa Kollarova, on an ongoing project centered on children’s play and playspaces. In late 2014 Seventeen Playgrounds, a guide to Aldo van Eyck’s designs for children in the centre of Amsterdam,will be published as a result of their research. Anna van Lingen finished her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2013 and lives and works in Amsterdam.
Watch a recording of this event: