Tight-Lipped

Paris was known for the modest dimensions of its municipal pools. What its habitual swimmers lacked in endurance they possessed in technical proficiency when it came to underwater turns. At thirty-three metres the Pontoise pool was one of the longer ones.
It was an art deco masterpiece, a perfectly preserved slice of the thirties, a relic of the nation’s obsession with all things sporting during the period between the two wars. The pool lay beneath an iron-framed glass roof, a miniaturised echo of those which graced the city’s railway stations. In a sign of kinship with the metro it was tiled in white and enlivened with blue – the colour of the pool itself and of the doors of the cabins stacked around it. The swimming area was overlooked by two mezzanines providing access to rows of individual changing rooms, making the place one of constant spectacle.