subordinating to something
Does "subordinating to play" mean "subordinating the seriousness of culturalism to play"?

Context:

In Right to the City, which, as the title suggests, polemically asserts the urban dweller’s claim to participatory citizenship, he writes that such a ‘renewed fete’ was ‘fundamentally linked to play’ and involved, in an echo perhaps of Hall’s ‘modernism in the streets’, ‘subordinating to play rather than to subordinate play to the seriousness of culturalism'.

Question

subordinating to something
Does "subordinating to play" mean "subordinating the seriousness of culturalism to play"?

Context:

In Right to the City, which, as the title suggests, polemically asserts the urban dweller’s claim to participatory citizenship, he writes that such a ‘renewed fete’ was ‘fundamentally linked to play’ and involved, in an echo perhaps of Hall’s ‘modernism in the streets’, ‘subordinating to play rather than to subordinate play to the seriousness of culturalism'.

Answer

It's badly written.  It doesn't actually state what is being subordinated to play.  I think you're right that the implication is that play is being put above seriousness.  So another way to state it would be 'placing play above the seriousness of culturalism, rather than vice versa.'