Sports and playgrounds and the problem of park design in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Public park designers were faced with the problem of accommodating large numbers of people and a wide range of facilities within their designs, but some of those facilities were more readily reconcilable with the traditions of landscape gardening than others. Buildings for shelter, for example, did not pose particular problems since the relationship between landscape and architecture was part of those traditions. Activities such as walking or picnicking similarly did not pose any severe problems other than those of setting sufficient space aside for the numbers involved. By contrast, sports and playgrounds posed difficulties, particularly when they involved large spaces, crowds of people, or a lot of noise. If park users were to be ‘civilized' by contact with nature, as the park promoters hoped, then noise must be minimized, and if the impact of numbers of people was to be minimized then the various activities would need to be screened from each other.