| Archive | www.flasla.org |     |
Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park
Print this Article | Send to Colleague
Despite the neglect, there is still something special about
Riverfront Park near downtown Tampa. It is obvious that Richard Dattner put a
lot of effort in the design of this Modernist adventure playground park. Originally
called Bicentennial Riverfront Park, it opened to the public in 1977 to
incredible fanfare.
As a young architect, Dattner built Adventure Playground in Central Park. It was New York City's first adventure "playscape" design and departed from all other playgrounds in the city. The playground remains and is celebrated to this day. Dattner's design was inspired by the playgrounds of post-war Britain, constructed in a less risk-averse time that offered many opportunities for imaginative play.
In the mid-1970s the city of Tampa hired Dattner to design a park fronting on the Hillsborough River adjacent to the University of Tampa campus and the residential neighborhood of Loury Park Central. Reminiscent of his Adventure Playground in Central Park, Dattner explored the "pleasing simplicity of circles" creating conical earth mounds with integrated slides, concrete viewing platforms and an amphitheater. The design included recreational fields, playing courts and a swimming pool. Two Live Oak allées cross the park and provide needed shade.
Charles Birnbaum described this park as "an incredibly important design by Richard Dattner." Not all of the original features remain. The shuffleboard court is gone. The swimming pool is gone. One of the mounds was bulldozed away. The geodesic domes are gone. The wooden forts built around climbing trees have been replaced with plastic play equipment.
Tampa is growing into a city of the 21st century, leaving little historic standing in the way of city building. Look what happened for example to Daniel Urban Kiley’s Modern Masterwork, the NationsBank Plaza, when it was in the path of city building. Its destruction set off an uproar around the world. Now Dattner’s Riverfront Park is in the way of those same forces.
David Driapsa, ASLA
FLASLA HALS Chair