Seaside swimming pools. A productive leisure

Abstract

Since the 1910 decade up to the first part of the ‘40s many pools were built in Mar del Plata in order to teach swimming, to play, to take part on sports and to make competitions. Some of them were placed over the sand on the beach, some others in public or private seaside resorts or just on the cliff. However, all they were linked to the coast line.

This work studies the operation launched by the estado interventor which turned a playful physical activity into rather productive aims, and therefore shows material and aesthetic changes in activities and devices as a result of it. In the ’30s, establishment speech promotes and exalts sports to forge patriotic feelings and to raise spirituality. The Cubierta and Playa Grande swimming pools, besides the one that municipality had built in Punta Iglesia, were three sport bastions with propaganda objectives. They would take advantage of Mar del Plata’s popularity and its media spreading as a holiday town.