The Springboard in the Pond: An Intimate History of the Swimming Pool(The Springboard in the Pond)

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.

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

Review :
" 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