In 1929, Johnny Weissmuller, an Austrian-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies, inaugurated the Piscine Molitor (also known as the Piscines Auteuil-Molitor or the Grands établissements balnéaires d’Auteuil) swimming pool in Paris (what is why I call it Tarzan’s swimming pool). As well as the beautiful La Jarry, this wonderful Art Deco building, which hosted the popular introduction of the bikini by Louis Réard in 1946, is planned to be destroyed in 2012!
The 4-star Tarzan Swimming Pool
Instead of that great, abandoned Art Deco design atmosphere, the new investors leased the property for 54 years (for round about €64.8 million) and are going to build a 4-star hotel, a health center, and a medical center, as well as retail, restaurants, and parking facilities, what’s in my eyes is completely incomprehensible.
For that reason half French, half Hungarian, Los Angeles based artist Mambo created a giant swimming pool collage, as a giant tribute to the olympic champ as well as a bridge between this golden era and today. The documenting video (see above) also gives some great insights into the building itself and makes me wonder why on earth someone would destroy such a nice place which was intensely used by urban artists, urban explorers and for bike polo…
For more info about the Piscine Molitor, check out the Wikipedia article!
Photos by Axel Corjon and Vincent Ros.
