Stephanie Sutton

Title of Dissertation: The Child and the City: Play and the Image of Childhood in the Urban Landscape, 1953 –1978

In the aftermath of World War II, children playing on the streets and bombsites of Britain’s cities was to become a familiar sight, described as an ‘exuberant reappearance’ and documented extensively in wider culture. Yet out of this heightened visibility and supposed freedom, children became the focus of welfare reform, with the spaces of childhood subject to regulation and control. The playground was no exception to this, with children becoming the recipients of adult ideologies through design.

My research focuses on two prominent types of playground space: the architectural playground and the adventure playground. Although diametrically opposed in design, both playgrounds developed simultaneously during the mid-1950s as a solution to the effects of urbanisation on children’s play and negotiation of space. Using primary literature on designing for play, oral histories and archival material held at The Children’s Play Information Service and London Metropolitan Archives, I argue that the playground can be used to understand wider societal concerns, including the perceived rise in juvenile delinquency and move away from the modernist project. 

Focusing on the intersections between architectural and design discourse, experimental pedagogy and concerns in post-war society, my research examines how these subjects manifested in design for play and uses both playground types, coupled with the play space of the street, to not only to understand how the image of the child at play was used to reinforce the politics of the Welfare State, but to document the changing topography of London during this period.