Orange Coast College, Swim Stadium

Orange Coast College, Swim Stadium

As part of Neutra and Alexander’s commission to complete the master plan for the new Orange Coast College in the early 1950s, the firm took on the design of a swim stadium which included a training pool and a racing pool. Neutra’s records indicate that the firm experimented with numerous pool shapes and material compositions—ranging from reinforced concrete, thin shell Gunite, prefabricated steel, and prefabricated aluminum alloy pools—before finalizing their design. In addition, the architects carefully studied attendance records and schedules, taking into account the use of the pool by the community as well as by college students. The final design’s distinctive concrete diving board is shaped like an abstraction of a diver’s body when bent at the waist, preparing to take the plunge.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 228.