Photo Essay: the beauty of outdoor swimming pools
It’s been a tough year for lovers of a swim en plein air, with many pools closed for months on end. But a just-published book, Lido, by Christopher Beanland, has arrived in time for a dip, with many lidos now reopened – a perfect moment to delve into the beauty of outdoor swimming pools, we think. Here, we’ve picked five examples from the book that will have you reaching for your googles.
Bronte Rock Pool, Sydney, Australia
Evelyn Whillier’s was a pioneer of women’s swimming, taking part in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and winning a gold, silver and bronze at the 1938 Empire Games. A plaque in her name sits next to Bronte Rock Pool, where Whillier lived out a quiet life after her moment of glory, essentially teaching almost everyone in Bronte how to swim over the next 46 years.
And what a pleasure it must have been to learn in the Rock Pool. Cut into the cliffs, a sheer rock drop above the pool was for years a popular place to dive from. Today it’s fenced off, lifeguards prowl, and onlookers cover their eyes – but show-off lads still jump fences and evade capture to chuck themselves off the 10m ledge, landing with a splash below. What would Evelyn Whillier make of it all?
Seebad Utoquai, Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich’s lake baths fulfil the typically Swiss need for something that feels as close to a beach and as close to the sea as you’ll get in a landlocked country. Almost every city in the country has something along these lines.
Utoquai is a charming affair anyway – historic bathing buildings clustered hard against the water’s edge and plenty of swimmers taking a dip just five minutes from the centre of Switzerland’s largest city. An added attraction for architecture fans is the Pavilion Le Corbusier, the Swiss architect’s final work, completed posthumously in 1967 and just a short stroll from Utoquai. It was restored and reopened in 2019, following several years of sad dereliction.
Oasis Sports Centre, London, UK
The Oasis is testament to a glorious age of British building, the 1960s, where nothing was considered too good for the public – including a luxurious, centrally located pool, and the social housing blocks of the Dudley Court Estate for pensioners that curl around the site, and are a part of the original development plan. This is the one place you should tell visitors to visit if they want to experience a surprising and enlivening London slightly beyond the tourist trap of the West End.
Icebergs, Sydney, Australia
Star of a million Instagram photos, Icebergs pokes tantalizingly out into the ocean, begging for a pic. When the frothy surf smashes over the pool walls, the striking visual effect is heightened.
A few lengths here are understandably on many bucket lists, and it’s an easy one to tick off because so many backpackers find themselves in Bondi on their first few days Down Under. Not a bad place to begin the journey of a lifetime, is it? The modern building behind the pool is nothing to write home about, but the restaurant on the top floor serves a great brunch.
Ohlson Recreation Centre, Sea Ranch, California
The wooden buildings and bold shapes at the 1971 Ohlson Recreation Centre, located halfway up Highway 1 between San Francisco and Mendocino, are modern yet somehow also aware of the environment.
The Sea Ranch has a cultish, intellectual vibe; its architecture is also brainy. The pool by Moore Lyndon Turnbull Whitaker of Berkeley sets an almost brutalist aesthetic against pale blue, its ballsy central tower now sadly shorn of slide and steps, with oversized coloured lettering systems and sliding partitions to finish things off in style. The whole ensemble was built as a sheltering system from the Pacific winds.
The above are edited excerpts from Lido (Batsford) by Christopher Beanland
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