Colin Ward, 1924–2010
architect, educator, writer
London
Colin Ward worked in architecture, and as a teacher. After the war, he joined the editor’s team of the anarchist weekly Freedom (1947-1960), and was the head of the monthly Anarchy (-1970). In 1961, he published a special issue of the magazine Anarchy dedicated to the adventure playground: Adventure Playground: A parable of Anarchy, where he compares the adventure playground to a free miniature society, and also states that childhood is playhood.
In 1971, together with Anthony Fyson, he was employed as education officer for the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA).
The TCPA is a vountary organisation, founded in 1899 by the garden city pioneer Ebenezer Howard to propagate the decentralist ideas that led to the government policy of new towns after the second world war. Later its activites expanded into advocay of regional planning, the involvement of the general public in the processs of planning. (Art and the built environemnt, p.13) .
In 1960, TCPA set up an environmental education service for schools in order to increase public participation in the planning process. As a vehicle of communication, Fyson and Ward established BEE, the Bulletin for Environmental Education (1971-1980). It provided material and guidance for teachers and invited to look at the city, to explore and understand the built environment. Ward, together with writers such as Paul Goodman and Patrick Geddes, saw the environment as a primary educative resource: spaces outside the school could provide most valuable learning experiences.
Ward published seminal books such as Streetwork. The Exploding School (1973), Anarchy in Action (1973), Vandalism (1973), or The Child in the City (1978). Apart from education and childhood, Ward published on topics such as town planning, housing policy, and anarchism. Fascinated by the human ability to educate and organise itself, he promoted self-help strategies and self-built projects. Ward shared some ideas of the de-schooling movement of Ivan Illich developed in 1971. Ward himself was an autodidact.
see as well: Sol Perez-Martinez: Deschooling Architecture, Architectures of Education (a collaboration between Nottingham Contemporary, Kingston University, e-flux Architecture, and a cross-publication with The Contemporary Journal), March 12, 2020
Eileen Adams, Colin Ward, Art and the Built Environment: A Teacher’s Approach, Longman, Essex 1982
posted September 14, 2016
