body of water
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 moreThere is also plentiful evidence of members’ utter dedication to the club through the decades; when times were hard, it kept going largely thanks to their efforts. Building walls, laying lawns, clearing scrub, selling geraniums, mending deck chairs, re-tiling roofs, fixing frozen pipes, designing diving boards, establishing native plants and trees,... See more
New book celebrates 100 years of Henleaze Swimming Club – Outdoor Swimming Society
by 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
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
immersion
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 moreIn Victor Turner's analysis, the category of leisure might be understood as an invention of industrial society as a compensation? Within designated activities, we find remnants of what might be considered sacred rituals. He notes that in traditional societies the sacred was inseparable from play in the roots of theater — the sacred plays performed
... See morefrom the architecture of bathing, p.200.
bathing spaces provide space for “critical distancing”, allowing space between you and the world by submerging yourself in water.
invading Roman soldiers using swimming as a military tactic and appropriated native sacred springs
The story of swimming – Outdoor Swimming Society
James Turrell, Heavy Water