Following the tradition of public swimming pools on the Spree River from the late 19th century, this project restores a closer relationship between the city of Berlin and the river through a floating pool within it. Located in the heart of Berlin, the pool sits on the river itself, housed in a converted coal barge—like those that still ply the water daily transporting materials—complete with a “beach” of wooden platforms designed for leisure, relaxation, and enjoyment.
Since the time of ancient Rome, swimming pools and thermal baths have been places for meeting and enjoying nature and water. The Spreebrücke—as it is known in German—is a prime example of this. The project embraces the concept of a bridge both literally and figuratively. The bridge is seen not only as a connection between two points, but also as a connecting line, a meeting point, within the city.
The Spree River once played a vital role in Berlin’s social life. As in other European capitals, during the 18th and 19th centuries, bridge construction in the city center became a prolific activity, resulting in structures rich in symbolism and representation. During World War II, all of Berlin’s bridges, with the exception of the Weidendammer and Schilling bridges, were either completely or partially destroyed by bombing. The boundaries between East and West Berlin were not only defined by the wall that now belongs to history, but also by the destruction of the bridges that spanned the river.
The bridges built after the war are austere works of engineering that, avoiding any deviation from functionality, were limited to providing an effective response to the communication needs that arose during the reconstruction of Germany. Soon after, the divided city would completely turn its back on its river, which largely coincided with the border between East and West. Moreover, the presence of the Spree came to be perceived as another part of the wall that divided Berlin in two for many years.
On the other hand, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were fifteen popular public baths along the banks of the Spree. Some were designated areas within the river itself, while others were nearby reservoirs, known as Badeschiffe (bathing boats), which were fed by its waters. However, the increasing pollution of these waters had already led to the closure of all the public baths before the First World War.
Since German reunification in 1989, the government has made formidable investments in the restoration and construction of new bridges and new connections.
Spreebrücke Berlin is a project that addresses the challenge of reconnecting the city. Fernando Menis’s team embraced the idea of reunification, leveraging not only the existing Spree River but also its extensive historical industrial uses. It is precisely this prior industrial use that serves as inspiration for this new intervention, in addition to the previously mentioned early 20th-century Berliners’ habit of going to the river.
This entire project, encompassing both architecture and art, was promoted by Stadtkunstprojekte eV and curated by Heike C. Muller. In 2002, the German state-run association Stadtkunst Projekte (Cultural Projects in the City) launched an international competition to integrate the Spree River into the city of Berlin. StadtKunstProjekte initiated a multi-faceted competition, entitled “con_con” [built connections], which brought together artists, architects, and engineers to develop a series of interventions aimed at reclaiming the bridges and banks of the Spree as vital urban spaces. Among these interventions, the Spreebrücke project is based on the concept of the bridge as a means of communication, not only between two points, but also between the city and the river.
The Canary Islands architecture studio and Berlin-based artist Susanne Lorenz won the competition, which was entered by thirty-two other participants from more than twelve countries. The result is an innovative project that enlivens the Spree River by creating a leisure area as the best way to optimize and activate that part of the city, located in the busy Treptow district in Kreuzberg.
The project is based on the reuse of a sunken vessel as a floating public swimming pool, creating a new leisure space next to the former Berlin Wall. The result is a pool of crystal-clear, Caribbean-blue water , submerged, in contrast, in the dark waters of the Spree River, accessed via a bridge that rises from an artificial beach. Optically, it appears as if the bathing takes place in the river, although in fact the immersion is in a former industrial barge, a cargo ship used to transport coal, now submerged in the waters of a river that seeks to become an active part of the city.
The Spreebrücke is therefore a new floating bathing area that can be disassembled and transported to any point on the river. It is currently installed in the southeast of the city, just before the Oberbaumbrücke bridge. It consists of a pool, an artificial beach, a bridge, and a container. Initially, the idea was to create a round pool, and the team, along with Frei Otto, who was on vacation in Tenerife, tried to formalize this idea. However, in the search for a lower-cost solution, they opted for the process of transforming and recycling a schubleichter—a type of transport barge very common on the Spree—which proved to be very interesting. After removing the boat’s deck, the hull forms a rectangular, floating basin, defining a rectangular enclosure of clean water on the river’s surface where one can swim in the summer and skate in the winter. Powerful blue and green lights embedded in the interior walls of the pool illuminate the water’s surface with the summery colors of the Caribbean or the Canary Islands, colors longed for by Berliners, like a luminous, permeable blue line for Berlin. Water flying over water . Depending on the Spree’s flow, the pool floats or rests on its bed, so its surface can be flush with or rise above the river level.
As we approach the river, a path opens up through the sand leading to two large wooden platforms, which serve as artificial beaches for sunbathing, floating alongside the pool. These connect to the old cargo barge converted into a “bathing boat.” The barge, a recycled former Schubleichter, is ideally sized for swimming at 32.5 meters long, 8.2 meters wide, and just over two meters deep. It contains 400,000 liters of lightly chlorinated water maintained at 24°C. The group’s engineer, Juan José Gallardo, calculated the liquid load and the barge’s own weight so that, when fully filled, it would be raised 70 centimeters above the river’s surface. The idea was to align the water level with the edge of the pool so that bathers would feel completely immersed in the river. To achieve this, and by means of draft curves, an expanded polystyrene base was added to the air chamber contained in the double shell of these cargo vessels, which reduces the weight of the load and achieves the desired displacement.
It represents the universal archetype of the ideal public space due to its ability to seamlessly integrate architecture and the city without establishing any boundaries between them. Furthermore, the recycled Schubleichter (a type of boat) that forms the pool basin evokes a local dimension of the project, reflecting the rich tradition of the Spree River’s nautical industry.
With the proposal of a contemporary “bathing boat,” the design team aimed to revive the practice of bathing and incorporate this activity into beach bars. The new “Spree Bridge” connects the past, with a lost tradition, and the present, serving as a place of communication. The idea captivated the private company ARENA, which built it and keeps it anchored in front of its leisure facilities as a powerful attraction.
The collaboration of various professionals transformed a lost tradition into a poetic experience, and Berlin gained a completely new perspective of its city. Since its inauguration twelve years ago, the project has become a leading center for outdoor activities in this area southeast of the city center, a driving force for change and activity in this multi-ethnic Berlin neighborhood.
