Window display: Buiteltuinen

9 September - 19 November  2017
Location: window Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9
On view: 24/7 from the street
Presentation design: Collective Works: Peter Zuiderwijk & Karin Mientjes

Presentation as part of Stroom School: Céline Condorelli: Proposals for a Qualitative Society (Spinning) and Play your city (Speel je stad)

In 1970 De Bijenkorf celebrated its 100th anniversary. For this occasion the department store commissioned Group Ludic to design a series of rough and tumble outdoor playgrounds in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and The Hague. Group Ludic consisted of an English architect, a Polish filmmaker and a French sculptor, all united by nostalgia for play. With their colourful and spectacular playground equipment they first tried to get adults to start playing again. When that did not have the desired result, they decided to focus mainly on city children, who did not have much room to play.

In The Hague a "rough and tumble playground with lots of objects for play" was installed in the Zuiderpark. During the inauguration alderman G.W. Hijlkema announced that the municipality would continue to go for these kinds of imaginative playgrounds when establishing new areas for outdoor play. De Bijenkorf also made sure that the initiative was embedded in a broader movement promoting outdoor play. The department store invested the proceeds of their special anniversary sale (65.000 Dutch guilders) in the creation of the Stichting Buitenspelen (Foundation for Outdoor Play) and supplied the foundation with a work budget. The aim of the foundation, in addition to the creation of rough and tumble playgrounds, was to promote (scientific) research into outdoor play, from the point of view of developmental psychology and social pedagogy.

09 Sep '17 - 19 Nov '17
Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Entrance: free