The Aspirational Fantasy of the Perfect Playroom

Marcel Breuer, House in the Museum Garden, photo by Ezra Stoller (1949).

Hazel Cills asked me to comment for an article on the history of playrooms.

“In the 1950s there was a lot of parenting advice directed at young families about what should be an ideal playroom,” says Alexandra Lange, Curbed’s architecture critic and author of The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids. “It was about art supplies and toys that would spark an inquisitive spirit or a desire to construct.” Magazines stressed that keeping playrooms as simple as possible would help promote a child’s creativity. Architects like Marcel Breuer and Gregory Ain designed and built house models each featuring playrooms in the late 1940s and early 1950s at the Museum of Modern Art garden, tying the playroom to clean, modern design.

It certainly didn’t hurt that a cool, sleek playroom would also reflect parents’ tastes. “Right from the beginning parenting experts and childhood experts are involved and there’s a discussion about whether you should design the playroom for the kids or for the parents,” Lange says. “You have experts saying, you don’t need a fairy tale theme, you don’t need a cowboy theme.”