Overview

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. This text looks at the domestic swimming pool and discovers an icon through which to read 20th-century modernism. At one level, the book is a rereading of modern architecture that seeks to alter its story. At another level, it is the story of the origin and evolution of the private swimming pool as a building type and cultural artefact. At yet another level, it is a material philosophy of water. Van Leeuwen explores that 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 three prevailing human attitudes towards water: hydrophilia, hydrophobia and ambivalence. The book's many illustrations - drawings, plans and photographs - come from an unusual variety of sources. The 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.

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9780262720328

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Reviews

The Springboard in the Pond is a bracing intellectual plunge. A searching exploration of manners, morals, and darker truths in cultural and architectural history, it is both insightfully serious and wildly funny. --Thomas S. Hines, Los Angeles Times [R]ichly written and generously illustrated... van Leeuwen succeeds in showing us the depths beneath the tinest ripples of history. --Phil Patton, Civilization

""" The Springboard in the Pond is a bracing intellectual plunge. A searching exploration of manners, morals, and darker truths in cultural and architectural history, it is both insightfully serious and wildly funny."" Thomas S. Hines , Los Angeles Times""[R]ichly written and generously illustrated... van Leeuwen succeeds in showing us the depths beneath the tinest ripples of history."" Phil Patton , Civilization ""At a moment where 'all that is solid' seems precarious,Thomas van Leeuwen's History of the Swimming Pool is an heroicand timely attempt to theorize an architecture of the liquid."" Rem Koolhaas "" The Springboard in the Pond is a bracing intellectual plunge. A searching exploration of manners, morals, and darker truths in cultural and architectural history, it is both insightfully serious and wildly funny."" Thomas S. Hines , Los Angeles Times ""[R]ichly written and generously illustrated... van Leeuwen succeeds in showing us the depths beneath the tinest ripples of history."" Phil Patton , Civilization"

Author Information

Thomas A.P. van Leeuwen is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Leyden.

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