Girona Pool 2011

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When you build an in-ground swimming pool, you have to fill it with water whether you use it or not. Otherwise it will crack. Because of the financial crisis in Spain, one will see many skeletons of unfinished buildings, some of which have swimming pools with no one to swim in them. I used to walk past one in Girona, Catalonia and as you can see in the first picture, the water is clear, you can see the tiled bottom and you can also see piles of leaves and other debris which have blown into it.

Months later I passed by it and it had become opaque like a pond from the decay of the organic litter. At this point I began to photograph it with regularity. The fascination was from the reflection of the sky on any given day along with a construction crane which moved from time to time.

I took these photographs for about a year until one day I walked by and there were three adolescent boys playing in the water although the pool was surrounded by construction fencing. The fencing remained, I assume, until the building was finished and the pool was officially opened.

Update: Six years later I went back and the last photo is what it looks like now.

If you want to see more of the series, ~70 photos including ones which give some context, the original page I made for it is here. The page scrolls right, not down, and your scroll wheel will work that way. If you have a large enough screen, you can view 2 images at once.


© John Maas