Volksbad Dortmund

Volksbad Dortmund swimming lane

Foundation stone and dedication

Swimming lanes in the backlight

diving platform

The Public Baths Dortmund is under monument protection standing pool in Dortmund . It is located in the former Volkspark Dortmund south of the Rote Erde stadium . The outdoor pool is operated by the non-profit Sportwelt Dortmund gGmbH.

history

The open-air swimming pool in the former Volkspark in Dortmund, better known as the Volksbad , was built from 1924 under the direction of the City Building Councilor Hans Strobel . For Strobel, the living conditions in the workers' quarters were an incentive for the Volkspark idea : “The health consequences of living together in densely packed, smoky tenement districts without playgrounds and recreation areas are well known. There are relatively few green spaces in industrial areas, especially in larger cities. Apart from the Dortmund-Ems Canal, Dortmund does not have a single open -air swimming pool. "

The outdoor pool was initially planned with a 100-meter lane, but the funding threatened to tip over. For this reason and because the International Swimming Federation reduced the length of the lane for competitions during the construction period, the lane length was finally set at 50 meters. This may have been the first swimming facility with a 50-meter lane suitable for competitions in Germany. The 250 to 300 workers who worked on the structural implementation then received an hourly wage of 67 pfennigs, later this was increased to 73 pfennigs. 28,000 cubic meters of soil were moved, 220 railway wagons with Rhine sand were needed to found the area for the bath. The costs at that time amounted to around 1.8 million marks, a gigantic sum at the time.

In a west-east sequence: a non-swimmer and swimmer pool with a length of 50 meters, a swimming and sports pool with a 50-meter lane and a 16 m long diving pool with a 10-meter tower. The open-air swimming pool was not only a leisure facility, it was also planned as a swimming stadium, with stands to the north for 2,800 spectators, which had to give way in the 1980s. The flat-roofed head building initially provided space for a coffee terrace, which in 1928 fell victim to a new floor. The two two-story wings in the south and north contained cloakroom and service rooms such as a kiosk, first aid room, lifeguard room and the caretaker's apartment. The sanitary facilities (shower and toilet) were housed in the single-storey flat roof extensions. On the courtyard side, ceramic reliefs with mythical creatures from the water kingdom line the facade to this day (Neptune and mermaid).

The facility opened on July 17, 1927. “Thousands of onlookers waited at the edge of the diving pool together with City Planning Officer Strobel, Lord Mayor Ernst Eichhoff, and District President König. They waited for the parade with the float, which started at 2:30 p.m. on the Hansaplatz in Dortmund with everything that, from a sporting point of view, had a reputation in Dortmund. The official opening act followed on site with a speech by Strobel followed by a swim. The first competitions in somersaults, twisting and pike jumps from 10-meter diving boards have already been completed. Practically from the opening day, the pool became a magnet with up to 18,000 visitors on some days. "

The bath was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War. It was only able to reopen in 1948 under the direction of the British occupation forces. "In the post-war years, Dortmund residents were only allowed to plunge into the cool water at certain times of the day, tickets were sold at so-called cash registers," recalls Willi Schweizer, a long-time swimming master at the Volksbad ".

The public bath was expanded in 1973 by an area of ​​5,000 m², the air bath was built in the northwest and a fenced-in area on the west side for lovers of nudism . Since the expansion of the Westfalenstadion in 1995 by Borussia Dortmund , the air bath no longer exists. (There are now parking spaces on the area)

Since June 13, 2007, the Volkspark swimming pool has been registered as an architectural monument in the monument list of the city of Dortmund .

Web links

• Description of all locations on this themed route as part of the Route of Industrial Culture
• sportwelt-dortmund.de
• mein-dortmund.de
• Monument authority of the city of Dortmund: Monument from July / August 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Strobel: Bauwelt . No. 33 , 1926, ISSN  0931-6590 .
2. ^ Information from Friedrich Wilmsmann in an interview with the Dortmunder Ruhrnachrichten , June 11, 1977.
3. ↑ Frank Fligge: The bathroom for the people for 75 years. In: Westfälische Rundschau Dortmund, May 16, 2002.
4. ^ Rossmann, Dortmund Monument Authority, June 13, 2007.
5. ↑ Gerd Kolbe: A bath for the people. In: Dortmund Ruhr News. dated July 17, 2007.
6. ↑ Frank Fligge: The bathroom for the people for 75 years. In: Westfälische Rundschau Dortmund. May 6, 2002.
7. ↑ No. A 1034. List of monuments of the city of Dortmund. (PDF; 180 kB) (No longer available online.) In: dortmund.de - Das Dortmunder Stadtportal. Monument Authority of the City of Dortmund, April 14, 2014, archived from the original on September 15, 2014 ; Retrieved June 20, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 28.7 ″  N , 7 ° 27 ′ 20.9 ″  E