As part of our annual theme Game & City, we are starting a new Object of the Month series: Play Good by Architects. We kick off the series with a beautiful play object: the 1950 Swing Car by Mart Stam, Hans Brockhage and Erwin Andrä.

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Schaukelwagen

Cornelis van Eesteren and Mart Stam's paths crossed regularly. In 1928, they designed a joint plan for the redevelopment of Rotterdam's Hofplein and, after the Second World War, they were jointly involved in the design of Nagele in the Noordoostpolder: a new village with affordable housing built according to the latest insights. They were also jointly involved in the development of the Tuindorp Frankendael housing project in Amsterdam. One of the first post-war effects of Amsterdam's General Expansion Plan. As a convinced communist, Stam left for the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1948, where he became director of the Kunsthochschule Weißensee. There, Stam supervised a seminar on toy design in which young student Hans Brockhage participated. During the seminar, Brockhage worked on the design for a wooden rocking horse. When Stam saw the horse, according to tradition, he exclaimed in cracky German: 'Wenn Pferd fällt um, ist Pferd tot. Du mußt machen Pferd, das nicht tot ist, wenn fällt um'. The horse was not allowed to fall over and that was the reason for Brockhage to change his design. He brought in fellow student Erwin Andrä and together they created a broad-based object that functioned as a swing but also worked the other way around as a toy car. This is how the Schaukelwagen born: a children's furniture made of beech wood, curved plywood, metal and rubber.

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Back in production

The design was successful and was put into production by the Volkseigener Betrieb (VEB) Holzspielwaren Werke Ohrdruf in the GDR from 1951. After a few years, however, consumer interest waned and the Swing Car seemed to be forgotten. Until the German company Werkform GmbH from Brand-Erbisdorf acquired the license in 2011 and has been marketing the object ever since. The interest in the Rocking Chair has therefore increased again, (precisely) also for original vintage ones.