City of Play: An Architectural and Urban History of Recreation and Leisure : Bloomsbury Visual Arts : 9781350032170 : 1350032174 : 31 May 2018 : City of Play shows how play is built into the very fabric of the modern city. From playgrounds to theme parks, skittle alleys to swimming pools, to the countless uncontrolled spaces which the urban habitat affords ? play is by no means just a childhood affair. A myriad essentially unproductive playful pursuits have, through time, modelled the modern city and landscape. Architect and scholar Rodrigo Pérez de Arce's erudite, original, and often surprising study explores a curiously neglected dimension of architectural design and practice: ludic space. It is an architectural history of the playground ? from the hippodrome to the Situationist city ? of space released from productive ends in the pursuit of leisure. But this is more than just a book about how architecture has incorporated play into its spaces and structures, it is a history of the