2022 Volume 57 Issue 3 Pages 863-870
A literature survey was conducted on the discourse of the period from the Taisho era to the prewar Showa era, when Japanese sports facilities began to be developed, with the aim of clarifying the composition of the Playground issues that arose during that period, including how the issues arose and how they were considered to be resolved. The playground issues were the question of whether to establish a park as a place for passive recreation or a playground as a place for active recreation on free space in the city. The officials and experts in parks and green spaces sought to solve these issues by presenting a new concept of "sports parks" as places where athletic competitions could be held, with the park as the main focus, and sports facilities were developed around sports parks. As a result, the recreation movement in Japan developed differently than in the U.S. or Germany, and continues to influence the current Japanese sports environment.
