In 1944, Marie Paneth, an Austrian-born art therapist, imagined a scheme whereby London’s bombsites would be used by local children for building huts and caves and for growing vegetables which they could then sell. Paneth saw the children as the future landlords of these damaged grounds, with minimal adult intervention.
In 1946 the children’s rights campaigner and landscape architect Lady Allen of Hurtwood visited the Emdrup junk playground (Skrammellegepladsen Emdrup) in Denmark. Opened in 1943 by a workers’ cooperative housing association on the outskirts of Copenhagen, it featured all sorts of dens and play structures, including a tall watchtower, that children were building from spare building materials donated by local builders.
