As part of our annual theme Game & City, we write about Play Good Made by Architects every month. Over the past few months, we have highlighted toys designed by renowned architects such as Mart Stam, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, Charles & Ray Eames, Vilanova Artigas, Bruno Taut and Enzo Mari. This month, architect Anne Tyng (1920 - 2011) is the focus.

‍

Tyng was American but born in China where her wealthy parents worked as missionaries. Just before the Second World War, she began studying architecture at Harvard, where she was taught by Mies van der Rohe and became the first woman to graduate as an engineer. In 1949, Anne Tyng was the first woman in Pennsylvania to receive her architectural license.

‍

Even before she received her license, Tyng designed a modular, interlocking building set in 1948: The Toy. With the 21 pieces, children could make various objects, such as a rocking horse or a mini car. She was influenced in the development of The Toy by the American philosopher John Dewey, who advocated that children should learn more through action and less through observation or theory.

‍

Throughout her life, Tyng remained interested in the complexity of geometric shapes. She went to work for architect Louis Kahn, with whom she got into a relationship, and collaborated on the famous futuristic City Tower, designed for the city of Philadelphia but never built. The tower has a distinctive structure of geometric shapes and it looks like The Toy was the inspiration. And so Tyng's toys can be found in Kahn's architectural work.