How has skateboard design evolved since the 50s? The perfect opportunity to discover this is Skateboard, the exhibition opening on October 20th at the Design Museum in London. A project curated by Jonathan Olivares – a skater, author, and designer – that will trace the entire history of the two-wheeled board. This includes the first issue of Quarterly Skateboarder from 1964, featuring a letter from a reader wondering if a sport like skateboarding could ever make it to the Olympics. Not only in sports but also in the world of creativity: you’ll also find a series of images published in Queen Magazine in 1967, with some considerations about skateboards and their future as creative elements in the art world.
Skateboarding had humble, practically homemade origins. We’re in the 50s in California, and the early designs were inspired by roller skates, scooters, and surfboards. Made of wood with roughly attached wheels, they were typically used by children. Skateboards were used in empty swimming pools or ditches, while in England, they had to adapt to different, less forgiving temperatures than those in California.
One of the first boards sold in the UK dates back to 1967 and was produced by Bilbo, a Newquay-based company in England, where surfing is popular. It’s thanks to items like these that the connection between surfing and skateboarding becomes increasingly apparent. The turning point for skateboarding came with the so-called kicktail, which would later become a standard feature of skateboards in the 1970s and allows skaters to turn the board, enabling them to perform the first skate tricks. The inventor was Larry Stevenson, the founder of Makaha Skateboards.
In the 1970s, skateboarders became true professionals capable of monetizing their careers. In the exhibition, you’ll find pro models, including one that belonged to pro skater Laura Thornhill, the Logan Earth Ski from the 1970s. Throughout the exhibition, there will also be pro models from skaters like Steve Caballero, Rodney Mullen, Mike Valley, Mark Gonzalez, Matt Hendley, and PJ Ladd, all active from the 1980s to the early 2000s. In the 1980s, in England, the first skateboarding magazines were born, such as Skateboard! and Skateboard Scene. Even though these publications had a short life, Read and Destroy (RAD), a key magazine in keeping the scene alive in those years, eventually arrived.
Fast forward to 2009 when Palace, one of the most recognizable London brands in the skateboarding world, entered the scene. Born from the idea of Lav Tanju, the brand is part of the exhibition with the Palace Long Live Southbank 2017 board, inspired by one of the most significant places in the London skateboarding scene. The Sky Brown x Skateistan Almost Deck skateboard of Sky Brown, the thirteen-year-old who won a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, will also be on display at the exhibition.
In conjunction with this exhibition at the Design Museum, a book titled Skateboard in collaboration with Converse and edited by Phaidon, will also be released.
