When I was an architecture student in the late 1960's my fellow students and I realized that almost all of us had played with some sort of building toy as children. For many of us it was American Plastic Bricks, though wooden blocks, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, and Tinker Toys were all equally high on the list. Many of us had spent time playing with every one of these toys.
Though it seems to be widely known that Frank Lloyd Wright gave a lot of credit for his ability as an architect to his childhood involvement with Froebel Blocks, there seems to be far less acknowledgment that almost all architects from my generation benefited from early exposure to various kinds of building toys. I'm certain that one of the key skills that develops from playing with these toys is the ability to translate easily back and forth between what is described in two dimensions and what is built in three dimensions.
All of these building toys came with instruction books filled with two dimensional drawings and photographs which illustrated the objects that could be built in three dimensions. Sometimes these drawings were perspective drawings but just as often they were plans and elevations. Children looking at these illustrations and then building the objects that are illustrated gain perceptual skills which are hard to develop in any other way.
It is so heartwarming to see another fan of Building Bricks! I also still have my childhood set. The doors and windows are long gone, though. Probably a testament to my "artistically sloppy" nature, but I thought those items stifled my creativity. I almost became an architect, if not for my deplorable math skills...but BB remains the ONLY toy from my childhood which has stayed with me all my life. Thanks again.
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