La Piscine, Art and Industry Museum in Roubaix, France.
La Piscine is an art and industry museum in Roubaix, housed in a former municipal swimming pool built between 1927 and 1932 by architect Albert Baert. The main hall holds a 50-metre pool, now lined with sculptures, under a barrel-vaulted ceiling with a large semicircular window screened by a golden sunburst grille. Two tiers of white-railed balconies run along the sides, and statues stand against the walls.
Albert Baert designed the swimming pool between 1927 and 1932 as a public bathhouse for textile factory workers. After closing in 1985, Jean-Paul Philippon transformed the building into a museum that opened its doors in 2001, connecting the original structure with new exhibition rooms.
The name La Piscine reminds visitors of the original use and gives the museum its special character. Glass windows along the sides create the impression of walking through a greenhouse, while the water between the artworks appears as a living part of the exhibition and fills the rooms with changing light.
The museum opens Tuesday to Thursday from 11 to 18, Friday until 20, and weekends from 13. Visitors can walk around the basin and explore galleries in the former changing rooms and added wing, with flat floors and wide passages making movement easy.
The pool basin is kept filled, and the sunburst window at the far end is mirrored in it. The building was designed as both a 50-metre Olympic pool and a public bathhouse, with bathing cabins on two levels along the garden facades. The museum opened in 2000 after Jean-Paul Philippon converted the closed pool.
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