VW bathroom
The VW-Bad is an outdoor pool in Wolfsburg . It is named after the Volkswagen Group and has been designated as an architectural and landscape monument.
history
In the city, founded in 1938, there were bathing areas on the Mittelland Canal and the Großer Schillerteich , but no open-air swimming pool. From 1950, the pool was planned on behalf of what was then Volkswagenwerk GmbH, initially under the name “Park swimming pool”. The Hildesheim architect Otto Immendorff designed it together with the garden and landscape planner Wilhelm Heintz , who had already been involved in the planning of what was then the “City of the KdF car near Fallersleben” before the Second World War. The aim was to create "one of the most beautiful and modern leisure facilities". The bathroom was built by the VW construction department within 90 days and given to the city of Wolfsburg by the Volkswagen factory. The construction costs were around one millionMark . The bathroom should have space for 10,000 visitors. On July 29, 1951, it was opened by Heinrich Nordhoff , then General Director of the Volkswagen factory, and handed over to the city of Wolfsburg.
Around 1960, around 200,000 guests visited the pool every year; in hot years the annual number of visitors rose to almost 300,000. Around 1980 around 550,000 visitors were counted annually, making the VW pool the most popular swimming pool in Wolfsburg.
location
The outdoor swimming pool is located in the Köhlerberg district between the city forest in the south and west and the meadows of the Hasselbach valley in the north and east, on a parcel formerly known as the "Kuh-Berg". The city center is around one kilometer away. Access is from the north, where there are also parking spaces. The elongated building, which mainly contains changing rooms, has an L-shaped floor plan and opens up to the city forest and the sandstone cliffs "Drei Steine". In postal terms, the outdoor pool is part of the Berliner Ring.
Equipment, architecture and data
The heated pool has a 50-meter swimmer pool with eight lanes, a diving pool, a non-swimmer pool with a slide and a baby pool. The jumping facility has jumping possibilities at heights of 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 meters. The diving tower slopes towards the diving pool and, like the slide, is designed as a sculpture. Both are made of concrete. There are also two beach volleyball courts , a football field, a mud playground, table tennis and an 18,000 m² sunbathing lawn.
The western wing of the "L" is divided by two semicircular pavilions, the northern wing with the entrance and exit is closed in the east by a pavilion with a round floor plan, in which there is a restaurant. The original architecture was partially changed through several renovations. So the barrier to the jump area was changed.
The pool is open every year, alternating with the Fallersleben outdoor pool, from the end of April / beginning of May to the beginning of September or from mid-May to mid-September. In 2015, 94,907 people visited the VW bathroom.
Web links
- The 1951 VW bathroom in the Freischwimmer magazine
- Planning drawing for the "Park swimming pool" 1951
- Aerial photo of the VW bath by Matthias Leitzke
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , pp. 58-59.
- ↑ a b swimming pool opening. Wolfsburger Nachrichten of July 31, 1951. In: 50 years of Wolfsburg in the press. City of Wolfsburg, Press and Information Department, Wolfsburg 1988, p. 23.
- ^ Biography Wilhelm Heintz , accessed on May 27, 2016
- ↑ Wolfsburg our city. Wolfsburg 1963, p. 19.
- ^ Stadtwerke Wolfsburg AG (ed.): Baths for Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg 1981, p. 16.
- ^ The VW-Bad 1951 in the Freischwimmer-Magazin, accessed on May 27, 2016
- ↑ The season in the Hehlingen water park begins on April 24th. ( Memento from May 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) wolfsburgerblatt.de from April 12, 2016
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 49 ″ N , 10 ° 47 ′ 42 ″ E