body of water
But the most important space of the house is at its center: the swimming pool. Lit by zenith light, it has the peculiarity of being perforated by a series of windows that connect the pool with the living room. Observing Joséphine’s body, with her dark, glowing and flawless skin moving naked in the water flooded in light, was an experience that, to... See more
A HOUSE FOR THE BLACK VENUS
London County Council, 1937 ‘ the word “lido” was popularly recognised as connoting an expense of sand with facilities for bathing and for basking in the sun’
The council was urged to use the term in all its documents “By doing so, the council will lend its influence in enriching the english language by a word which may, in time, seem as much at
... See moreused to democratise the word lido to the public who did not know what it meant.
Roger Deakin, writer of ‘Waterlog’, 2000, ‘it must be a sign of our anglo saxon awkwardness about the pleasures of the flesh that we borrowed the word lido from the Italians, just as we took café, restaurant and champagne from the french. Like restaurants, lidos are about style and sensuality. Iris Murdoch called swimming pools “machines for
... See moreby the early 1930s, outdoor public swimming pools had become an emblem of municipal modernity and of faith in a brighter, more enlightened future, in much the same ways as public libraries had become a generation or two earlier. - liquid assets, p.19
Unlike most indoor baths unbuilt during the Victorian and Edwardian period, Britain’s open air pools emerged at a time when mixed bathing was becoming more widely acceptable.
swimming pool emerged for the popularisation of communal, outdoor living.
they were deliberately classless. Unlike their indoor counterparts, there were no first or second class distinctions.
[liquid assets, p.19] Josiah Stamp, Governor of the Bank of England ‘Bathing reduces rich and poor, high and low, to a common standard of enjoyment and
... See moreDiving boards were a regular feature of lidos in the 1930s, but new safety rules in the 1970s put an end to the aerial acrobatics.
London’s lidos are swimming in history
In 1937, the LCC leader Herbert Morrison planned to make London “a city of Lidos”. This ambition was squashed by the Second World War (1939–1945), which forced a change of priorities. Later, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, London’s councils were pressured to cut costs. Lidos steadily disappeared. In 1950, Greater London had 70... See more
London’s lidos are swimming in history
When it opened in 1932, London Fields helped set a new standard for lidos, with changing rooms, a filtration system and a cafe. The lido was closed in 1988, and squatters soon moved in. It would have been demolished had campaigners not stepped up to save it. Eventually, in 2004, Hackney Council decided to revive the lido. It’s been enormously... See more