ARCHITECTURAL WORLD

Amusement parks are controlled environments that entertain visitors through the simulation of space, place, and experience. It is the element of control that is initially most important in defining the building type because the amusement park presents itself as a safe, and indeed sanitized, environment wherein conventionally dangerous or arduous activities can be undertaken without fear of their consequences. The desire for control leads to the necessity of simulating or fictionalizing each and every space and event that the visitor to the park will experience. For this reason, amusement park designers often treat their buildings and settings simply as film sets, facades that are divorced from the function of their interiors and that are dismantled and changed at will. In the early years of the 20th century, this transience was exacerbated by the fact that a single designer was rarely responsible for more than one part of any park. In combination, these factors render the task of deter...

The Amsterdam School was comprised of Dutch architects active between 1910 and 1930 whose work was associated with Expressionism and promulgated by the publication Wendingen. During World War I and for a decade thereafter, the striking and controversial work of the Amsterdam School transformed entire portions of its eponymous city and influenced architecture throughout the Netherlands. Although almost every building type was addressed, the major monuments are governmentfunded ensembles of workers’ dwellings arranged in perimeter blocks that brought a new scale to Dutch cities. Paradoxically, although its members sought unique solutions for each commission, a readily identifiable group style emerged, and collaborations were frequent. Characterized by a luxurious fantasy and individualistic details, the work came under fire in the later 1920s from proponents of the functionalist Nieuwe Bouwen; subsequently, the Amsterdam School was written out of the literature. But in the 1970s, reevalu...