Volksbad St.Gallen (Public Baths)
Hygiene and public health were already a social and political issue of the early 19th Century which was made acute after 1880 by rapid population growth. In the heyday of the embroidery business around 1910, the City of St.Gallen had well over 70,000 inhabitants – almost as many as today!
History:
Within just a few decades, living standards had changed drastically for most of the population, including the working classes: Rather than taking a few baths a year, people bathed weekly, noted hospital director Ehrenzeller in 1895. To accommodate this change, St.Gallen had secu-red a steady supply of water with the Rietli lake water facility in Goldach by Lake Constance in 1895. Their pride in this pioneering achievement is recorded to this day in the Broderbrunnen on Oberer Graben in front of the Multertor and the Stickereibörse, on what was then the cosmopoli-tan promenade of the city.
Architecture:
However, in 1900 only 18% of flats had a bathroom of their own. There was a clear need for a public bathing facility. At the demand of the doctor’s association and trade unions (Grütliverein, Arbeiterunion) the city built the second public indoor pool in the country, after Winterthur, which held not only a pool but also bathtubs. The guiding principles which shaped municipal architect Albert Pfeiffer’s multiple drafts for the project are particularly noteworthy: The public baths were a functional building, but spending time there must be pleasant, thus it merited a «beautiful, dignified interior design». Next to the appealing art nou-veau intereior, this was achieved with Henri Gisbert Geene’s sculptural decorations.
Present-day use:
The «Volksbad» is still used as a public swimming pool today.
Within just a few decades, living standards had changed drastically for most of the population, including the working classes: Rather than taking a few baths a year, people bathed weekly, noted hospital director Ehrenzeller in 1895. To accommodate this change, St.Gallen had secu-red a steady supply of water with the Rietli lake water facility in Goldach by Lake Constance in 1895. Their pride in this pioneering achievement is recorded to this day in the Broderbrunnen on Oberer Graben in front of the Multertor and the Stickereibörse, on what was then the cosmopoli-tan promenade of the city.
Architecture:
However, in 1900 only 18% of flats had a bathroom of their own. There was a clear need for a public bathing facility. At the demand of the doctor’s association and trade unions (Grütliverein, Arbeiterunion) the city built the second public indoor pool in the country, after Winterthur, which held not only a pool but also bathtubs. The guiding principles which shaped municipal architect Albert Pfeiffer’s multiple drafts for the project are particularly noteworthy: The public baths were a functional building, but spending time there must be pleasant, thus it merited a «beautiful, dignified interior design». Next to the appealing art nou-veau intereior, this was achieved with Henri Gisbert Geene’s sculptural decorations.
Present-day use:
The «Volksbad» is still used as a public swimming pool today.