Tom Luckey

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Tom Luckey
Luckey Climber at Westfield Fox Valley
Born
Thomas Walker Luckey

(1940-01-06)January 6, 1940
Quantico, VA
DiedAugust 19, 2012(2012-08-19) (aged 72)
New Haven, CT
Alma materYale School of Architecture[1]
OccupationsArchitect, sculptor
Known forLuckey Climbers
SpouseEttie[2]
ChildrenSpencer, Kit, Walker, Owen
ParentGeneral Robert Luckey[2]
Websitewww.luckeyclimbers.com
Boston Children's Museum

Thomas Walker Luckey (January 6, 1940 – August 19, 2012) was an American architect and sculptor, best known for inventing abstract playgrounds called Luckey Climbers.[3] Luckey also created furniture, merry-go-rounds, and interiors.

Life and career

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After graduating from the Yale School of Architecture in the late 1960s,[1] Luckey began remodeling friends' houses[3] and doing experimental projects, including one described as transforming:

... part of a Vermont house into a "spooky space landscape," as one critic described it. Randomly placed steps, ramps, and terraces ascended to the ceiling, and surfaces were sheathed in woolly orange carpet. Elsewhere in the house, a cylindrical rotating room replicated the spatial transmutations of LSD with a bed that became the back of a sofa, a table that morphed into a seating platform that became a desk, and so on.

— Alastair Gordon, Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties[4]

In addition to interiors and furniture, he also designed merry-go-rounds; one, inspired by square dances, moves riders from one seat to another as they go around.[2]

A mutual friend introduced Luckey to Agnes Gund, who insisted he contact the Boston Children's Museum.[2] After he persuaded officials to let him build his first Luckey Climber, the structure turned out to be one of the museum's most popular exhibits, and has now been replaced with a new version.[3]

In 2005, Luckey fell out of a second-story bathroom window and landed on his head. He fractured his cervical vertebra and was paralyzed from the neck down.[1][2]

Luckey died on August 19, 2012, at Yale–New Haven Hospital due to complications from pneumonia. He was 72.[5][6]

Luckey Climbers

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Luckey Climbers are multi-story climbing structures crossed with mazes and jungle gyms. In appearance, they have been compared to "a Calder mobile fashioned from Monet's lily pads".[3] They have been installed in locations across North America that include:

Venue Location
Boston Children's Museum[3] Boston, Massachusetts
Children's Museum of Pittsburgh[7] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Young at Art Museum[8] Davie, Florida
Papalote museo del niño[9]
(Papalote Children's Museum)		 Mexico City, Mexico
Children's Discovery Museum[10] Normal, Illinois
Children's Museum of Winston-Salem Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Westfield Fox Valley[11] Aurora, Illinois
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois
WonderLab Bloomington, Indiana
Long Island Children's Museum Garden City, New York
Children's Museum at Holyoke Holyoke, Massachusetts
Children's Museum of Memphis Memphis, Tennessee
The Commons[12] Columbus, Indiana
Children's Museum of Alamance County Graham, North Carolina
Westfield Century City Los Angeles, California
Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum Reno, Nevada
Children's Museum of South Dakota Brookings, South Dakota
Providence Children's Museum Providence, Rhode Island
Delaware Children's Museum[13] Wilmington, Delaware
Children's Museum of the Upstate Greenville, South Carolina
Children's Museum of Houston Houston, Texas
The Magic House Kirkwood, Missouri
Kidspace Children's Museum[3] Pasadena, California
Discovery Place[7] Charlotte, North Carolina
Christ Community Church[14] St. Charles, Illinois

Luckey (documentary)

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Filmmaker Laura Longsworth made a 2008 documentary, Luckey.[15] The film appeared at a number of festivals, including SxSW[16] and the Independent Film Festival of Boston,[17] and garnered the Special Jury Award for Artistic Portrait at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival[18] and Best Documentary Feature at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.[19] The film has also been shown on the Sundance Channel.[20]

References

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  9. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). – with sound and light system by Remo Saraceni.
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  15. ^ Luckey at IMDbLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
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  20. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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  • Official website
  • Tom Luckey at IMDb
  • Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (photo gallery)
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