Collective Bathing in Urban Waters: Three North American Episodes (1970-1984)

Abstract

Performed in the heartland of the North American context at a pivotal time in thinking about public spaces after the post-war boom, the opening of Portland's Keller Fountain in 1970, the founding of the Save Barton Creek Association (SBCA) by Austinites in 1979 and the Beach Party at Dallas City Hall serve to explore how the performativity of space was involved in the transformation of urban waters into bathing waters, or in the creation of an intimate relationship between the bathers and their surroundings. Therefore, following a social and spatial analysis of these three episodes of urban bathing, a number of conclusions are discussed. An initial observation is that, despite the differences between the three situations studied, the spatial qualities and architectural mechanisms that favour collective bathing, and thus spatial performativity, can be grouped together and compared, since there is a certain resemblance between the cases. A further reflection is that, beyond the spatial and architectural aspects considered above, the three cases also provide an opportunity to reflect on several properties bounded with collective bathing. In light of the foregoing observations and reflections, it seems clear that collective bathing in urban waters may have the potential to provide cities and citizens with performative ‘places’ where agency, community, responsibility, regeneration and testing can flourish.