DC -- Natl Building Museum -- Exhibit: Play Work Build:
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- Description of Pictures: PLAY WORK BUILD
ONGOING
Please note: Currently we are operating PLAY WORK BUILD in a very limited capacity: only 20 people in the exhibition at a time. The blocks and surfaces are sanitized regularly, and we ask all visitors to sanitize their hands and keep masks on at all times. Timed passes are included in your admission, and are available at the admission desk when you pick up your wristbands.
Research has shown how important play can be to a child’s development. But play is not only for kids. Through this exhibition, visitors begin to see the connections between play, design, and the work of building professionals like architects and engineers.
Only at the National Building Museum can the concepts of PLAY, WORK, and BUILD be combined to create an exhibition that enthralls kids and adults alike. Conceived in partnership with the internationally renowned design firm the Rockwell Group, this exhibition combines a presentation of the Museum’s world-class Architectural Toy Collection, a hands-on block play area, and an original digital interactive that allows visitors to fill an entire wall of the exhibition with virtual blocks—and then knock them down.
PLAY WORK BUILD
After viewing a selection of construction toys from the Museum’s collection, from the familiar Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs to the lesser-known Bumpalow House and Ringa-Majigs, visitors can reconfigure their environment and design their own course of play with individually sized blocks. In the subsequent gallery, visitors are invited to work individually to reimagine their small-scale structures created into oversized structures using supersized foam blocks or to work in groups to design and build something entirely new. Whether visitors choose the tactile experience with the small or large blocks, the virtual block-play experience, or all of the activities, children and adults alike are encouraged to participate in unstructured, imaginative play that exercises muscles and minds.
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- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- PLAY_210829_011.JPG: Play
Work
Build
Fun + Learning
- PLAY_210829_015.JPG: Alphabet Blocks, S.L. Hill, 1870/1890
- PLAY_210829_028.JPG: Erector Set, The AC Gilbert Co., c 1959
- PLAY_210829_037.JPG: Erector Set No. 12, The AC Gilbert Co., 1949
- PLAY_210829_038.JPG: The Mysto Erector No. 3, Mysto Mfg. Co, c 1914
- PLAY_210829_040.JPG: Meccano Set, Meccano Ltd., 1927
- PLAY_210829_046.JPG: Engineering
- PLAY_210829_052.JPG: The Noah's Ark ABC, manufacturing unknown [German], c 1913
- PLAY_210829_057.JPG: Story Building With Blocks, Milton Bradley, 1924
- PLAY_210829_058.JPG: (left) Ringa-Majigs, Molenaar, Inc., c 1970s
- PLAY_210829_062.JPG: (left) Lok A Bloks Set No. 2, Childhood Interests, Inc. 1954
- PLAY_210829_068.JPG: Creative Shapes
- PLAY_210829_071.JPG: Dis Kit Building Toy, Regina Products, c. 1960s
- PLAY_210829_080.JPG: toys + blocks
- PLAY_210829_084.JPG: Tom Thumb Toy Town, Transogram Company, Inc. 1937
- PLAY_210829_086.JPG: Guidance USA, Child Guidance Toys, Inc. 1959
- PLAY_210829_092.JPG: Toy Town Peg Board, Milton Bradley, c 1935
- PLAY_210829_095.JPG: Town Planning
- PLAY_210829_096.JPG: Bumpalow House, Milton Bradley, 1931
- PLAY_210829_099.JPG: Scale Models
- PLAY_210829_101.JPG: Girder and Panel Building Set No. 21, Kenner, 1964
- PLAY_210829_106.JPG: Modernistic House & Garage, Le Roy Toy & Novelty Co., 1948
- PLAY_210829_112.JPG: Tinkertoy Electric Motor Set No. 166, The Toy Tinkers Division of AG Spalding & Bros. Inc., c 1960
- PLAY_210829_115.JPG: Roy Toy Log Camp Building Set No. 1, Roy K Dennison & Sons, 1946
- PLAY_210829_119.JPG: Roy Toy Log Camp Building Set No 1, Roy K Dennison & Sons, 1946
- PLAY_210829_122.JPG: Junior Tinkertoy for Beginners, The Toy Tinkers, Inc., 1933
Self-styled "tinkerer" Charles Pajeau and his partner Robert Pettit invented Tinker Toys in 1913. The toy's signature "hub and stick" parts came out of Pajeau's experience watching children play with pencils and empty spools of thread. The Junior Tinkertoy set was a smaller alternative to the classic Wonder Builder.
- PLAY_210829_128.JPG: Lincoln Logs Set No. 1A, John Lloyd Wright, Inc., 1920
Developed by Frank Lloyd Wright's son John Lloyd Wright in 1918, the notched, interlocking Lincoln Logs could be used to build traditional houses and forts. The shape of the logs themselves may have been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's design for the foundation of the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which John observed during construction.
- PLAY_210829_136.JPG: Framing
- PLAY_210829_142.JPG: Froebel's Baukasten Sixth Series [Kindergarten Gift No. 6], manufacturer unknown [German], 1870
- PLAY_210829_145.JPG: school + blocks
- PLAY_210829_147.JPG: Occupational Material for the Kindergarten Gift No. 4, Milton Bradley, 1885
- PLAY_210829_153.JPG: Occupational Material for the Kindergarten Gift No. 3, Milton Bradley, 1885
- PLAY_210829_157.JPG: Froebel's Baukasten Fifth Series [Kindergarten Gift No. 5], manufacturer unknown [German], 1870
- PLAY_210829_160.JPG: Montessori School Pink Tower, FAC Montessori, 2012
- PLAY_210829_162.JPG: Cuisenaire Rods Learning Resources, 2012
- PLAY_210829_169.JPG: Unit Block Set, Melissa & Doug, 2012
- PLAY_210829_177.JPG: play + blocks
- PLAY_210829_179.JPG: Alphabet and Building Blocks, SL Hill, c 1865
- PLAY_210829_183.JPG: Sky-Hy Building Blocks, The Embossing Company, c 1925
- PLAY_210829_190.JPG: Splendides Blocs, E Chevalier, c 1900
- PLAY_210829_198.JPG: Crandall's Building Blocks, Charles M. Crandall Blocks, c 1867
- PLAY_210829_206.JPG: Anchor Blocks Fortress Series No. 408, F. Ad. Richter & Co, c 1916
- PLAY_210829_210.JPG: Richter's Anchor Blocks Set No. 4-1/2, F. Ad. Richter & Co, 1909
- PLAY_210829_226.JPG: LEGO System n Play 700/5, LEGO, 1959
Godtfred Kirk Christensen of LEGO (believed to be a contraction of the Danish expression leg got, which means "play well") created his own version of toy plastic blocks in 1949, first called Automatic Binding Bricks. LEGO's patented stud-and-tube interlocking system made it easy for blocks to stick together and enabled the construction of large, fanciful structures.
- PLAY_210829_229.JPG: Kiddicraft Self Locking Building Bricks, Kiddicraft Ltd., 1947
- PLAY_210829_236.JPG: Auburn Flexible Building Bricks, No. 949, Auburn Rubber Company, Inc., 1940
- PLAY_210829_244.JPG: LEGO Mindstorm Robot, The LEGO Group, c 2017
- PLAY_210829_255.JPG: Imagination Playground
- PLAY_210829_261.JPG: "I sat at the little kindergarten tabletop... and played... with the cube, the sphere, and the triangle -- these were smooth wood blocks... All are in my fingers to this day..."
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
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