David Aaron – The Playground Project Architektur für Kinder

David Aaron, designer, American, c. 1924-1984

– Designer of creative play equipment in aluminum
– Design director of Creative Playthings‘ Play Sculptures Divison
– Director of Playground Corporation of America
– Founder and director of the Mid-Hudson Institute of Community Design for the Young in Poughkeepsie NY

In 1957, Aaron designed the play sculpture „Aluminum Tree“, as part of Alcoa’s (Aluminum Company of America) Forecast Collection ( [Nb 6/1957]).

Aluminum had been widely used during the war years as a component in airplane manufacture. As part of its strategy to win new markets after the end of Word War II, Alcoa tried to catch the interest of the design community and get designer excited about aluminum and also make the consumer comfortable with this material.

In this regard, Alcoa launched a high-profile advertising campaign, the Forecast Program. Over a five-year period, the company commissioned some twenty designers – including Garrett Eckbo, Charles Eames, Isamu Noguchi, Eliot Noyes, Paul McCobb, Harley Earl, Elliot Noyes, Alexander Girard and Herbert Bayer – to produce objects from aluminum that could then be used in advertisement (Nichols, p.48)

„With the new Forecast design, aluminum is given its first serious introduction into outdoor playground applications. The lightweight, rust-proof characteristics of the metal, – plus its ability to be colored, make it a maintainance-free, „natural“ for playground use. The climbing tree is scheduled for actual production by Creative Playthings, Inc., New York City.“

The „tree,“ other Forecast items, and products of Massena Operations of Alcoa was on display during „Aluminum Days“ of the Massena Vacationland Festival (1958).“

Among Aaron’s creations were the playground for the United States pavilion at the Moscow Fair in 1959, the Playground of Tomorrow at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York and the playground at an elementary school in Bronxville, N.Y. (New York Times, August 18, 1984)

sources
Nichols, S. C., Agro, E. R., Teller, E., Antonelli, P., & Carnegie Museum of Art. (2000). Aluminum by design. Pittsburgh, Pa: Carnegie Museum of Art.
The Massena Observer, Monday June 16, 1958
https://content.cdlib.org/ark:/28722/bk0000m892r/
https://ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/exhibitions/items/show/814
https://ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/exhibitions/items/show/811
Taconic Press Newspapers, Thursday, October 6, 1977
https://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2010/04/isamu-noguchi-prismatic-table.html
https://greg.org/archive/2010/04/16/alcoa_forecast_eliot_noyess_wonderful_aluminum_world_of_tomorrow.html
New York Times, August 18, 1984

Source images:
David Aaron with Bonnie P. Winawer: Child’s Play. A Creative Approach To Playspaces For Today’s Children.
photographs David Aaron: Art and Dec. Collection, Carnegie Museum Pittsburgh
Playground Corporation of America, 1959.

posted: July 8, 2013; up-date: October 20, 2013; November 11, 2013, December 2019