Swimming + The Senses

Eva Cantwell

Swimming has always been a form of exercise, but one within which pleasures of specific environments were interwoven. From the Roman military swimming pools in the Tiber to the floating baths that used to exist in many European cities, swimming was not just about healthy exercise but also an awareness of water, its taste and feel. The health benefits were credited to the exposure to the elements and not just to physical exercise. Many of the floating swimming baths had dark cubicles in which people could submerge themselves in the river, and experience its temperature, sound and taste.

Advancements in the technology of manipulating water coincided with a loss of respect for water itself. The degradation of water from a profane element to merely a means to challenge the human body can be attributed to many factors, from the industrial revolution to the invention of plumbing. Hydro vulgarity can be seen in many forms from the car wash to the garden hose. The swimming pool moved indoors to a controlled and sterile environment, and so, much of the inherent sensuality was lost. In the controlled environment of the indoor pool many of the benefits of exposure to the elements, which were once celebrated, have disappeared.

Bathing once was an intrinsic part of swimming. However bathing has always had subversive associations, from the scandals of the Roman Baths to gay saunas. It has been banished to the private realm, and taken with it many of the sensuous aspects of pools. Public pools, perhaps in order to distance themselves from the hedonistic nature of bathing, have adopted an increasingly clinical ethos.

Swimming pools today have developed into machines merely for physical fitness rather than sensual enjoyment. The introduction of bathing caps in 1930 is a sign of this. For the bathing cap is the condom of aquatic freedom, another symptom of a society with a fear of touching. The start of the use of chlorine around the same time has changed the waters of the pool from profane to artificial and medical. Clocks adorn the interior of the pool, and rope lanes are laid down, the object is to cover the greatest distance and to do it in the shortest space of time. For efficient use of space swimmers are organised into continually moving lines, this ensures nobody is able to stop and socialise (goggles would ensure a conversation without eye contact anyway).

In the design of modern swimming pools more consideration is given to size and visual tidiness at the expense of thermal stimulation. Architects strive to circumference the largest space with the smallest means. The cheapest materials are used without much variation. Emphasis is continually on the visual from quirky viewing balconies to imposing exteriors.

Much of the literature available to architects as to the design of pools is little more than elaborations on the Technical Guidance Documents. Advice is given as to spatial arrangements and safety issues, but little consideration is given to the environment in terms of tactile or aural stimulation.

Even baths that successfully incorporate elements of sensory enjoyment such as Zumthor�s baths at Vals are ill-described by the text and accompanying photos. Descriptions are merely of a visual nature, and tell nothing about the actual experience of bathing in such places. This is part of the growing problem of architecture becoming an art form of instant visual images. The manner, in which architecture is displayed and written about in the media, with little or no attention given to sensory invitation, results in styles that deprive the sensory experience.

The ultimate result of this attitude to water as merely a means of exercising the body has resulted in the design of the lap pool. Lap pools are created for economic and aesthetic reasons, they are long, shallow and of maximum swimming length. Water has been completely vulgarised into a treadmill - no allowance is made for simple enjoyment of water. Another development of this culture is the swimming bath� a tub of water just adequate dimensions for one person in which motors produce water movement to enable the swimmer to swim furiously but not get anywhere.

Adults have trained themselves to ignore the sensory delight of water that naturally comes to children. A visit to any public pool on a Sunday morning will confirm this; children splash and float unheeded in the water while adults- nervously look on from the banks or vainly try and do a few lengths�. The lively atmosphere during these family sessions� is reminiscent of the noisy delight the Romans used to take in water. A description by the Roman philosopher Seneca some of the sounds coming from the baths, would not be unlike any children�s play pool.

�Then add the tough, and the thief caught in the act, and the fellow who enjoys the sound of his own voice in the bath; then add to them the fellows who jump into the tank and hits the water with a mighty splash.�

However swimming clubs are increasingly organising series of open sea swims during the summer, perhaps this is a form of revolt against the controlled environment of the pool. Unlike the unchanging environment of the indoor pool, an understanding of tides, climate and local condition is necessary to organise and compete in these swims. These swims are less focused on competition and more on the general atmosphere of the day. The main topics of conversation after the swims tend to be the temperature and movement of the water, unlike the typical indoor gala where the �apres�-swim talk is based on people�s performance and times. This heralds a return to a belief in the regenerative powers of nature; it is ironic that people can swim for free in the sea, a much more sensuous environment.

Peoples growing disassociation from nature and the loss of relevance for water have both resulted in inanimate swimming environments. Growth in the paranoia of disease and concern over the polluted state of the natural environment also must be credited for these changing attitudes. However the most interesting reason for the non-stimulating nature of swimming today is the disassociation of the sensual and often scandalous aspects of bathing from swimming, resulting in sensually uninviting environments.

Eva Cantwell studies architecture at UCD