“When there are two fine-weather mornings in succession in Iceland, it is as if all the cares of life have vanished for good.”

— Halldór Laxness, World Light (Translation: Magnús Magnússon)

Translation: Hallberg Brynjar Guðmundsson

On the first of March, I went to Iceland’s Museum of Design and Applied Art. That same day also happened to be the first sunny day of the year. After long dark winters the sun tends to reappear, beaming with joy she shines her beams on the sixty-sixth latitude, melting the ice and warming the people. However, this is a sign of false spring, as the temperature will not match the light until May or June. As I walked up the stairs to the museum, grinning with anticipation for the coming summer, I was welcomed by the sight of the design exhibition “Sund” that welcomes you at the top floor.

“Swimming Pools are designs for the community: They have shaped Icelandic society, culture, and its people for more than a century.”

The exhibition opened on February 1 of this year and will run until September 25. It tells the story of Icelandic swimming culture from the "swimming revival" at the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The content of the exhibition is displayed in various ways, with text, drawings, pictures and videos. The common thread throughout the exhibition is different areas of design that have shaped Icelanders’ experience of swimming pools. The exhibition is divided into three sections that are clearly marked by colors and have the captions: Learn, Play and Relish. The three areas showcase three different periods in Icelandic swimming culture as well as framing the different aspects of the design as well.

“Only 0.5% of Icelanders knew how to swim and countless drowned every year.”

The first area you enter is the yellow one and that area is dedicated to the art of learning.Nowadays, Icelanders take it for granted that they can swim. However, this was not always the case as the first part of the exhibition chronicles the beginning of swimming lessons in Iceland in the first half of the 20th century. The exhibition is presented in a fun way, for example with a history summary of the first female swimming teacher in Iceland and students’ stories of the use of swimming sticks in school swimming. In this area you can also find "sound showers", if you stand under the shower head and turn it on you are showered with stories of people’s swimming trips. As I walked along the walls and read about swimming lessons in previous centuries, I thought of Seljavallalaug pool off the Eyjafjöll mountains. It has now become well famous, especially among foreign tourists, but I associate it first and foremost with my father who learned to swim there as a child almost half a century ago. I have happy memories of summers there. My family and I often wandered up into the mountain valley, changed into our swimsuits in the windowless outdoor cabins and swam a few laps in the geothermal pool while the sun reflected on the surface of the water.

“The hot tub immediately became the whirlpool of society.”

I was pleasantly surprised to see a picture of Seljavallalaug when I entered the next area which is light blue. The picture, which hangs on the wall along with other similar pictures of other swimming pools, is taken from a drone high above the pool. In the light blue area of the exhibition the emphasis is on play, and in the middle of the last century, the emphasis of swimming culture was exactly that. Most Icelanders were now able to swim and each town had its own swimming pool.

There are three things that stood out in the light blue area. The first thing was the design history of various swimming pools. The period that the blue area highlights can be described as the golden age of Icelandic swimming pool architecture. Swimming pools like Sundhöll Reykjavíkur, Skeiðalaug in Brautarholt, and, last but not least, Árbæjarlaug were built during this golden period. In these swimming pools one can see Icelandic culture and art intertwined. The second thing to highlight is an exhibition of video clips that were recorded at Sundhöll Reykjavíkur in the fifties. The clips show a great many people having fun in the sun, or taking a swim. Through this the exhibition highlights how swimming pools in Iceland became community centers in their own right. People started to go to the pool to show off their figure and view the figures of others, but the main reason to go to the pool was to chat and gossip in the hot tub. Icelanders know the feeling of sitting in a hot tub and listening to the conversations that take place there. The art collective, Allsber, certainly know the feeling and they have been allotted a space in the museum’s lobby. There they make beautiful ceramic cups, on which they write phrases that they have heard in the hot tub.

The third and the last thing that caught my eye was a small and plain glass dome. Inside it was the one true smell that Icelanders acciocate with swimming. As I lifted the dome the smell of chlorine entered my mind and I was transported in time and place. Suddenly, I was in the local swimming pool in Hvalfjörður, which I visited last summer. I am sitting on the bank of a hot tub and bathing in the sunshine. I am with my friends, we are hungover after last night’s camping. Thankfully, the pool offers coffee which helps tremendously. I think to myself: “This is how Icelandic summers should smell, like coffee and chlorine.”

“The motto is to relish: relish being in the water, relish the physical experience, relish the fellowship.”

The third and final area is marked by a sea green color and we have now arrived in the 21st century. The emphasis here is to enjoy, or relish. Naturally, one of main focal points is the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s most famous geothermal pool. On one of the walls hangs a display of various swimwear by Icelandic fashion designers which displays the various fashion trends in swimwear through the years. On the opposite wall is an interesting display that focuses on swimming’s hottest new trend, floating. Floating involves special kinds of floating caps and other swimming aid items that people use to float on the surface of the water. This is a form of meditation that has become popular in recent times. At the end of the area and the exhibition there is a showcase dedicated to the geothermal pool Guðlaugar, on Akranesströnd. Once again, sunlit memories come rushing back to me.. I am standing in the black sand of Akranesströnd. The sea breeze gently caresses my back and the sun keeps me warm as the waves wash over my feet. My eyes travel across the shoreline and finally stop at the pool where it nestles against the seawall. I try to capture this moment in time; the stillness that comes with listening to the waves. I could still hear the waves as I walked out of the museum with a smile on my face, having learned a lot, had fun, and relished myself.

To the pool: A review of the exhibition “Sund” at Icelands’ Museum of Design and Applied Art

“Swimming Pools are designs for the community: They have shaped Icelandic society, culture, and its people for more than a century.”

“Only 0.5% of Icelanders knew how to swim and countless drowned every year.”

“The hot tub immediately became the whirlpool of society.”

“The motto is to relish: relish being in the water, relish the physical experience, relish the fellowship.”