Conversation 4 — Architecture
The Pool at the Edge of the World
By Ilhéu Atelier & José António Barbosa
Photographs by Marco Costa. Portrait by Pedro Duarte Jorge.
The Azores archipelago was first sighted by Portuguese sailors in the early 15th century. One of the most fanciful feats in the history of Azorean construction might be the Furnas villa of the American businessman Thomas Hickling. Built in 1780, his summer residence boasted not only a world-class botanic garden, but a large open air swimming pool filled directly from the town’s hot volcanic springs.
Emerging high upon sand-coloured cliffs into a light-filled vista of green and blue, they will discover the picturesque fishing port of Povoação. This small town is the most isolated in São Miguel but historically important as the very first settlement.
“Next to the large football pitch, just down from the budget supermarket Casa Cheia, is a series of low buildings. Clad in volcanic rock, their Brutalist style would perhaps be more fitting to a European capital city than a remote Azorean fishing village. These are the municipal pools, the infamous and feted architectural project by the architects Barbosa & Guimarães which opened in 2009 for a few months, then were closed and abandoned.”
One of the most ubiquitous and unchanging blues is that of the municipal swimming pool. Photographer Marco Costa’s ghostly images of the empty basin, and its dirty, pale turquoise tiles, capture well the washed-out blue of failure and abandonment.
Read the full conversation in Ilhéu Magazine Issue B
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