White Silence

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:52

The new building, consisting of laconic geometric volumes, is located on the Réunion embankment, in the place of the old coffee warehouses. Its walls, painted with shiny white paint, take on different shades depending on the time of day and weather; the same applies to interiors, where the architect also adhered to white colors and made extensive use of natural light.

The complex, which includes "play" pools, a sports pool, a spa center and outdoor pools with "beaches", is as far as possible from the traditional types of pool and water park. Nouvel paid great attention to the problem of creating a comfortable atmosphere for every visitor; as the main "irritants" the architect considered the noise and excessive "openness" of the traditional pool. Therefore, all rooms of the "Baths" are equipped with various sound-absorbing screens and partitions; in order to create “intimate”, quiet spaces even around large “play” pools, Nouvel tried to avoid spaces with simple rectangular or square floor plans. All areas of the aqua complex have a variety of niches and semi-enclosed areas where bathers can relax and swim without feeling "exposed".

The same applies to open water bodies: between them and the city space, as well as between individual pools, walls have been erected to protect visitors from prying eyes and noise.

The white color (wall paint and molten glass coating of the pools) of the different-sized blocks that make up the volume of the building contrasts with the blue color of the water, creating a coherent two-tone color scheme, which was violated by the architect only once: in the area of the paddling pool where he used a soft bottom and multi-colored plastic pillows.

All swimming pools of the complex, open and closed, are filled with heated water, so they can be used all year round; the same applies to the time of day: with the onset of darkness, the white gamut gives way to multi-color illumination of varying degrees of intensity.