Play as a Means of Urban Space Transformation in the Projects by the London Architectural Association Graduates in the 1960-1970s

In the 1950s, European architects realized that the monotony and rigorism of the projects, which had been implemented by the pioneers of modernism, had extremely devastating impact on the urban landscape. The lack of unique artistic solutions and diversity in urban topography resulted in citizens’ losing one of the most important self-identification sources. Firstly, the younger generation of architects pointed to their teachers’ mistakes. They emphasized the need to change the architectural approach and considered traditional society organization, primitive art and children’s creative arts to be the main sources of changes, that is, everything that could get a person back to natural relationships and direct and emotional perception of life. In some European quarters, the idea of transforming the passive “society of the spectacle” was supposed to be the key to solving pressing problems. Thus, having combined the Marxist theory, structuralist terminology, artistic practices of surrealism and Neo-Dadaism, and the members of the “Situationist International” developed a new concept of a big city, the theory of “unitary urbanism”. Of equal significance was the experiment conducted by the teachers and students of London Architectural Association, who also highlighted the call for unlocking the potential of urban space and believed the city to be the intersection of various emotional and play areas. Keywords—modernism; post-modernism; architectural association; architecture of the 1970s; urban planning