
The Springboard in the Pond
An Intimate History of the Swimming Pool
Thomas A. P. Van Leeuwen(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 28. February 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-262-72032-8 (ISBN)
Description
A dazzling reflection on the American swimming pool as an icon of modernism and a social, architectural, and psychological phenomenon.Although others have written eloquently on the relationship of water to built form, until now no one has investigated the swimming pool as a quintessentially modern and American space, reflecting America's infatuation with hygiene, skin, and recreation. In The Springboard in the Pond, Thomas van Leeuwen looks at a familiar hole-the domestic swimming pool-and discovers an icon indispensable to the reading of twentieth-century modernism. At one level, the book is a rereading of modern architecture that will leave that story permanently altered. At another level, it is the story of the origin and evolution of the private swimming pool as a building type and cultural artifact. And at still another level, it is a material philosophy of water. Van Leeuwen explores the human relationship to water from a variety of viewpoints: social, religious, artistic, sexual, psychological, technical, and above all architectural. Throughout the book, he weaves a series of analogies to three emblematic animals-frog, swan, and penguin-that represent the three prevailing human attitudes toward water: hydrophilia, hydrophobia, and ambivalence. The books many illustrations-drawings, plans, and photographs-come from an unusual variety of sources, creating what is surely the most provocative visual archive of the swimming pool ever assembled.This book is the second in a planned tetralogy by the author, with each volume centered on the relationship of architecture to one of the four classical elements: sky, water, fire, and earth. The first volume was The Skyward Trend of Thought: The Metaphysics of the American Skyscraper (MIT Press, 1988). The third volume, The Springboard in the Pond, is currently in preparation.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass.
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
210
Dimensions
Height: 267 mm
Width: 203 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
1111 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-72032-8 (9780262720328)
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Schweitzer Classification