ORO Editions

Mountain (1933), Contourned Playground (1941) and United Nations Playground (1952) all used the ability to shape a topography that combined concave and convex, the strict geometry of straight lines and curves. These never built projects, whose models were revealed in various exhibitions, represent a sophisticated blend of sculpture, art, architecture, and landscape architecture. The idea of “sculpting” a children’s playground must have confused specialists whose practice was based on following well-established standards, and for whom aesthetics was of little importance. The subversive side of Noguchi’s playgrounds was precisely concerned with aesthetic quality, as well as considerations related to a certain conception of safety. The pyramids, mounds, steps, triangles, rectangles, and other forms integrated in these landscapes and the rhythm resulting from the amalgamation of these freely composed elements marked, in any case, only a relative negation of the existing. Indeed, these projects, once built, could have worked very well since they responded first and foremost—and better than standardized solutions—to the physical demands of the human body, such as climbing, descending, jumping, walking, exploring. Noguchi’s “play sculptures” were, in other words, plural objects ready to be fully integrated into the respective urban context.

The second most significant case, upstream of Smithson’s works, is Herbert Bayer’s Grass Mound (1954) and Marble Garden (1955) in Aspen, Colorado. The grassy mountain consists of a ring of earth approximately 13 m in diameter with a mound inside, a large white rock, and a small furrow. Erected in front of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, its photograph was shown in the famous 1968 Earthworks exhibition (the first public appearance of what was to become Land Art). The Marble Garden, on the same site in Aspen, consists of a large platform with a small pond, a geometrical plan on which large blocks of marble of different size and shape create a surprising effect of shadows and lights. This “garden” also used the residual material from a disused quarry with unpolished marble blocks. Although they