Architecture on the Carpet

It’s true that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but there are a few books I buy just on the promise of the cover art and title. That’s the case with this one.

The title was quite intriguing, Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings, written by Brenda and Robert Vale and published by Thames & Hudson in 2013. I don’t think I’d be unduly giving anything away by saying the subtitle is a little misleading. The book’s premise is that building construction toys of the19th and 20th centuries may have had a crucial role in determining the work of modern architects who played with them in their childhood, and on the perception and acceptance of modernism in the general public. In the end the authors come to the conclusion that only a few famous architects of modern buildings might have been influenced by their childhood building construction toys. However, that doesn’t discredit the book at all. The reader isn’t beaten about the head and shoulders with the thesis, but it seems more of a lightly applied structuring device to present the fascinating history of these toys, and speculate on what their influences on the built world may have been. The book’s highly readable and I recommend it.

Of all the toy stories presented, the one about Kenner’s Girder and Panel construction sets in the chapter, Bilt-E-Z, Girder and Panel, Arkitex and the Brave New World, was the one that had the most personal resonance. Sometime in the 1960s I was given one of those Kenner sets as a Christmas present. Kenner produced a wide variety of sets, and I don’t know which one I had other than it must have been fairly big as I recall I could build from it a lot of small buildings or something quite large. It was my favourite toy, but I remember that after much use the little holes that held the panels to the girders tore, making construction a challenge. 

I was surprised to learn that the toy we know today as the Kenner Girder and Panel set was invented and sold by a Toronto firm called Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company in 1956, and the version that Kenner first released in 1957 was more-or-less an exact copy. The Vales speculate the Kenner product was “what appears to be a commercial rip-off”, not something sold under license. Being Toronto born and raised, I thought that was interesting. I then cruised the internet looking for more information about the Peter-Austin company and found that they also sold a building toy called Sta-Lox Miniature Building Bricks, a tube of which I also owned and played with a lot at the time. I continue to learn something new - or maybe old in this case - everyday :-)

What about our old friends the Pretty Village play sets? They aren’t discussed in the book, but there’s an extensive discussion on the dawn of model railway toys with a focus on station models.

Overall this is an excellent book on a particular genre of toys. It also has an extensive notes section whose references may unlock even more interesting material. I can see many nights of good reading ahead.