Architecture
Architecture and Childhood (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 18 December)
Child's play
Alan Powers
The ages of Englishmen can be dated as accurately by the construction toys they grew up with as by their repertoire of pop- ular songs. Some of us had Richter's Anchor Blocks, in wooden boxes with chromolithographed instruction manuals slid into the space under the lid, showing blocky structures in simulated landscapes. Others had the English equivalent, Lott's Bricks, designed by the Edwardian archi- tect Arnold Mitchell. The generations divide sharply at the arrival of Lego (patented in 1959), a harbinger of the time, in 1981, when Meccano was produced only in plastic.
While grown-up architectural models can achieve a toy-like character, on the strength of which many a building has probably been approved which should never have been enlarged beyond 00 scale, architectural toys have different purposes. The history of architecture in the nursery is an interesting one. Stuart Durant, who with his colleague from Kingston University, Elizabeth Darling, has organised the exhi- bition Architecture and Childhood at the Heinz Gallery (21 Portman Square, W1), believes that there is still more to be dis- covered. The likely survival rate of early architectural toys, such as the Moderne Baukunst of the 1830s, is low, although the exhibition has some highly attractive early examples made of wood with coloured paper stuck over to create detail.
Apart from the collector's interest, there is a chapter of educational history here, extending from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Friedrich Froebel, the 19th-century Ger- man educationalist who had himself intended to become an architect. Froebel believed in the importance of accustoming young minds to pure form, and devised a series of 'gifts' for the ages two to six, intro- ducing increasingly complex forms. These were not meant for free creative play, but for serious instruction. They are often remembered in connection with Frank Lloyd Wright, whose mother brought some back from the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. Some of Wright's inter- locking volumes can be traced back to Froebel's influence.
After this, the toys tend to become more overtly commercial in character, although the Anchor bricks were produced by a Froebel disciple, and show their moral ten- dency in the way that failure to follow the instructions lands you in trouble because you run out of the required pieces to com- plete your building accurately. The devel- opment of children's bricks follows the progress of architecture, but only in a rather sketchy manner. With the English `Arkitex', the toy takes on the character of system building, but becomes quite untoy- like in its complexity. The decline in easily represented architectural style in the 1930s meant that toys became limited in ' their aspirations, descending to the suburban bathos of Bayko. Relief is only offered by the magnificent skyscraper of 'American Skyline', specially devised for this exhibi- tion by Dr Neil Bingham.
Nowadays, constructional toys are in a more general decline, as the children who once used them (chiefly boys, as the organ- isers regretfully point out) turn instead to computers, although the capacity of the computer for three-dimensional modelling has already produced some remarkable results in children's hands. What perhaps it can do is to rescue architectural play from the do-gooders, the latter-day Froebels who believe that children should be educat-
ed in the rudiments of modern architec- tural thought. If given the space and the materials, children will build structures for serious fun. The turn-of-the-century sociol- ogist and planner Patrick Geddes believed that children naturally went through a speeded-up version of the evolution of civilisation in their spontaneous den-build- ing, and proposed setting aside a special area of Dunfermline Park for the purpose. Absenceof adult guidance is essential.
As far as children's appreciation of archi- tecture is concerned, their delight is likely to be in the absurd, the unstable, the exag- gerated and the incorrect, as much as in the elegant plan or structure. It is these qualities that make architectural style such a subject of fascination, not the po-faced rationalism of the children's books on architectural history that for, some reason flourished so much after the war, but left less of a mental impression than Dan Dare's spaceships or Herges Marlinspike Hall. A selection of these books is on dis- play, each of which proclaims the end of history in a brave new world of plywood and concrete, although I know of one issued by the Scottish Design Council which bravely allowed its child-heroes to choose their own furniture, with pleasingly eclectic results.
There has been much discussion lately about the need to train a new generation to appreciate architecture, in order to raise the general standard of awareness and, according to the barely concealed motive, to prefer the approved works of modern architects to the kitsch or cosy revivalists. Children respond to ornament, colour and mystery in buildings but, judging by toys that really sell well, have no taste. Many of them never grow up in this regard, but per- haps we should allow them some blissful ignorance before exposing them to the icy blasts of contemporary architecture, and meanwhile enjoy some harmless nostalgia for a vanished age of play.
Anchor Blocks, made by Richter and Co., Rudolfstadt, Germany, c.1880
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