Tidal Pools, Pim Vuik

It was in nineteenth-century Brittain that people first thought of turning swimming into a healthy form of recreational sport. Swimming pools were built, and clubs set up. In 1869 Brittain even acquired a special organisation to promote the interests of this form of activity, the Amateur Swimming Association. At the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896, swimming was included in the competitive sports , a sign that it was by then fully established as a sport.Beach tourism developed in the same period. The advent of trains brought the coast within everyone”s reach. Not just the idle rich, but workers and their families could also afford to make enjoyable and invigorating trips to the seaside. The nineteenth century witnessed the creation of the first tidal pools, which took advantage of the shifting movements of low and high tide. At high tide the pools filled up or were totally flooded. At low tide they provided a sheltered environment for swimmers and seaside visitors. They became particularly popular in countries where the sea is too rough or too dangerous for swimming because of strong currents, jellyfish or sharks, as in South Africa and Australia. They were also created in places lacking in natural beaches, such as parts of Spain and Portugal.

Afmeting: 50 x 38 cm
Auteur: Pim Vuik
Taal: NL, ENG
Uitvoering: Hardcover