Abstract
This essay explores various storylines knotted to and woven around a wooden inlay puzzle of a rooster (educational toy) and a climbing frame (play sculpture) shaped in the form of a toucan - artistic designs we initially attributed to the Swiss artist Pierre Küenzi. Conceived as an open-ended travelogue that allows readers to embark on an explorative journey together with the authors and feel a bit of the “historical sensation” that pushed us off the beaten track, this account is a first tentative attempt to describe our journey exploring both known and unknown territories and crossing between the worlds of art, urban development, educational reform, experimental psychology, and the publishing industry. This journey started when we revisited several sources regarding Ovide Decroly’s educational games and tests and stumbled upon a detail we had been overlooking all the time, namely the image of a rooster puzzle on the cover of a 1978 reprint of Ovide Decroly and Eugénie Monchamp’s Initiation à l’activité intellectuelle et motrice par les jeux éducatifs. This cover image triggered many questions and urged us to tell the story of these educational and artistic interventions, ultimately leading us to a toucan climbing frame designed for a public playground (ca. 1970).
