amusement park

Volksgarten Nymphenburg around 1900, at that time the largest amusement park in Germany

An amusement park is a spatial grouping of one or more rides (" flying structures ") with show booths, carousels and other attractions for the entertainment of larger crowds. Amusement parks are for the entertainment of adults , teenagers and children . An amusement park can be permanent or temporary. Permanent amusement parks are called amusement parks and are also used for recreation . Time-limited amusement parks are often found every year for a few days or weeks as a fair , fair or as part of folk festivals .

Themes and attractions

In addition to themed areas, amusement parks often offer attractions such as carousels and ferris wheels , air swings, roller coasters , autodromes, bumper cars , amusement shops , show booths , pony rides, sometimes artistic demonstrations or concerts, and usually beer or festival tents .

The original amusement parks were the forerunners of the modern theme parks . In addition to the classic amusement parks, there are a number of parks that specialize in a particular attraction or group of people. This area includes high rope parks , barefoot parks and activity centers for children.

Another category is miniature parks with scale replicas of cities.

Hubris of the technical and reproduction of the rare

In the tradition of the fairs - since the Middle Ages a meeting place and stage for jugglers , dancers and acrobats - the amusement park developed at the end of the 19th century as a new type of folk festival , a kind of folk festival of the mechanical age.

With engine power and electric light, the new rides develop a central theme: the hubris of the technical; the allure of a modern, industrialized world that positions itself on the very abyss where the dangers it creates are just tamed by an equally increased ability to prevent disasters. For understandable reasons , the Burning House was a popular thrill at the time . The rides combined the danger that one escaped only at the last moment with the reproduction of the rare.

For the inhabitants of the overcrowded cities at the turn of the century, there could no longer be conventional entertainment and relaxation options due to a lack of space and money - they had to be artificially reproduced. The ride, the journey, the sleigh ride, the seafaring - excitement par excellence, once a privilege of the upper class, has now been enhanced with rides such as the Petersburg sleigh ride , the Steeplechase horse race , the fall of Pompeii , the Swiss mountain railway , the river trip with the tree trunk Shoot the Chutes and the ghost train made accessible to a greater number of people. Getting to know each other, which is difficult for their isolated residents in the modern busy cities, was simplified in the Crazy House when people fell on top of each other in the Barrel of Love and could then be deepened with a ride in an artificial swan in the Tunnel of Love. Many of these mechanical marvels came from world fairs and other national fairs, so that the name fair for amusement park was just as common as the architecture with its grouping around a water basin illuminated in all colors was based on it.

evaluation

Amusement parks have a long tradition in different forms and objectives and can be found all over the world. This speaks for a general need on the part of the population that is satisfied here. However, since the Middle Ages they have been controversial again and again among certain social classes, religious groups and educators with different arguments. Some denounced the moral decline of the mob , others the rampant lust for pleasure and still others the lack of human-educating element in these forms of entertainment. Amusement parks were still considered cheap entertainment for the proletariat at the beginning of the 20th century : When Maxim Gorky visited Coney Island in 1906 , he was deeply shocked by how easily and with what low effects the mass of people was willingly seduced. He noted in his diary: "That is freedom in the hands of the yellow devil, gold."

It was only recently and in view of the rapidly increasing interest of the population in spacious parks with spectacular attractions that various scientific disciplines began to deal more intensively with the phenomenon of this leisure fascination of the masses, which led to a more differentiated assessment and evaluation.

In his research on the history of amusement facilities, the cultural historian Sacher-Roger Szabo reconstructed an ancient tradition with partly ritual roots which, at least in western countries, attest to an originally magical or religious background to what is now largely mundane hustle and bustle. There is evidence of a close connection to the respective cultural development of the various countries.

But also the simple desire for a temporary exit from the routine of everyday life and for experiences of tension that intensify the attitude towards life has its legitimation. In his analysis, the venture researcher Siegbert A. Warwitz differentiates between the different needs and demands in people's leisure time activities on the one hand and the corresponding offers on the entertainment market on the other. He differentiates between the so-called “ thrill seeker ”, who strives for the mere thrill and hurries from one spectacular offer to the next in so-called “event hopping”, and the “ skill seeker ”, who pursues a meaning with his experience of suspense, something like in Testing your level of anxiety, physical fitness, or ability to cope with stress may be. He sees another essential difference between thrill and skill offerings in the degree to which the amusement park merely accommodates the frugal intention of being passively “adventured” by someone else or offering opportunities to act independently and responsibly. The former comes into play in the various rides such as carousels or air swings, the latter has priority in climbing halls , adventure playgrounds or high ropes courses and corresponding stations in the amusement park. These require a more intensive examination of the task, self-activity and self-assessment, but are usually less spectacular.

Overall, the amusement parks, with their wide range of offers, are assigned an important function in growing into and in the meaningful design of the new spaces of a flourishing leisure society, even with children and young people. But they can also be understood and used as an introduction to the self-directed, self-dependent adventure .

literature

Oliver Herwig: Dream Worlds. Architecture and Entertainment. Photographs by Florian Holzherr. Prestel, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-7913-3220-1 .
A. Huber: Life as a thriller. Thrill or hit or miss? In: Psychology Today. 6, 1994, pp. 64-69.
Rem Koolhaas: Delirious New York. Arch + Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-931435-00-8 .
Dietrich Neumann: architecture of light. Prestel Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-7913-2533-7 .
Claudia Puttkammer, Sacha Szabo: Greetings from the Luna Park. An archeology of pleasure. Amusement and amusement parks in the early twentieth century. WVB Berlin, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86573-248-4 .
Sacha-Roger Szabo: Intoxication and hype. Attractions at fairs and amusement parks. A sociological cultural history. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89942-566-9 .
Markus Wachter: Artificial Leisure Worlds. Lang, Frankfurt 2001, ISBN 3-631-37552-2 .
Siegbert A. Warwitz: Sensation addiction or search for meaning. Thrill or skill. In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior. 2nd Edition. Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-89676-358-7 , pp. 296-308.
Jürgen Weisser, Between Lustgarten and Lunapark. The Volksgarten in Nymphenburg (1890-1916) and the development of the commercial amusement gardens, Munich 1998, ( ISBN 3-89675-449-1 )

Web links

Amusement parks - the TÜV-certified adventure matinee of SWR2, conversation Jörg Biesler with the venture researcher Siegbert A. Warwitz on May 22, 2016.

Individual evidence

↑ Markus Wachter: Artificial Leisure Worlds. Lang, Frankfurt 2001.
↑ A. Huber: Life as a thriller. Thrill or hit or miss? In: Psychology Today. 6, 1994, pp. 64-69.
^ Sacha-Roger Szabo: Rausch und Rummel. Attractions at fairs and amusement parks. A sociological cultural history. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006.
^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: sensational addiction or search for meaning. Thrill or skill. In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior. 2nd Edition. Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 296–308.
^ Theo Lang: Children need adventure. Munich 2006.
^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: Risk shows ways into new worlds. In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior. 2nd Edition. Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 49–96.