More than a structure dedicated to sport, skateparks are “a meeting place for all those who love the city and want to celebrate urban life”, as World Skate points outThe federation understood that it was necessary to make it an attractive space, “perfectly integrated into the architectural environment of cities”. This is why it encourages, through its facilities department, skateparks that are “unique in their design”, to foster skateboarding creativity. Many initiatives have emerged and put these ideas into practice in recent years.
“Extremely geometric spaces”
The arrival of skateboarding on the Olympic Games program has logically boosted these projects. Last year, a monumental sculpture open to skateboarders was installed on the forecourt of the Centre Pompidou in Paris for three months. The work was designed to combine art with the spirit of the skatepark, a setting for living, sharing, and sporting leisure. "For many years, I have been interested in the history of geometry, and at the same time in the history of skateboarding.", explained the artist behind this project, Raphaël Zarka. His Cycloid Piazza thus constitutes “the meeting of these two stories which work in a similar way, because all skateboard spaces are extremely geometric spaces”.
This Cycloid Piazza was part of the Cultural Olympiad (Fred Mortagne).
By combining curves and lines, the skatepark proves to be an interesting artistic medium, where shapes, volumes, angles, and curves offer a wide range of aesthetic possibilities. Raphaël Zarka had already designed a Cycloidal Ramp, which was installed in several cities across France, including Rouen. With this skateable work, which is "as much a sculpture placed in a public space as a piece of sports equipment capable of delighting street sports enthusiasts", the municipality saw it as a way of bringing culture to the public because "too many people avoid entering a museum or art gallery.".
The temporary bowl installed at the foot of the steps of the Sacré-Coeur last year (Dezeen).
More than just sports facilities
Similarly, a temporary bowl was installed last year at the foot of the Sacré-Cœur. A site "made from a combination of wood and moss, sculpted and painted scenically to resemble the stone that was once quarried on the site", explained Jeff Franklin, co-founder of the PlayLab studio, at the origin of the project, for dezeen. “We wanted these elements to have a visual weight that could stand out in the shadow of the incredible basilica above.” The result was striking. Halfway around the world, in the suburbs of Canberra, local authorities have revived the Moore Park skatepark in Queanbeyan, transforming it into a true work of art: artists and local youth collaborated to present the bowl in a new light by covering it with a giant mural depicting a young boy sitting in front of his board.
The giant mural painted in Moore Park in 2022 (QPRC).
On a different note, in Qingdao (China), a skatepark evoking waves and clouds sits atop a building in the city center (main photo). Spotted by Games Flash, its bold design reflects the city's duality, caught between towering skyscrapers and the waves of the Yellow Sea. “From a design perspective, the bowl adopts a pure and fluid curve, designed to reflect the graceful movement of waves and rays of light.”, explains the Within Beyond studio. Iain Borden, architectural historian and professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, believes that “the first thing to understand about skateparks is that they are not sports facilities.”, and that they are above all spaces for community living. Undeniably, they are also spaces for artistic creation.
