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Decorah Municipal Swimming Pool

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1937–1938. Pool St. south of College Rd.
  • Decorah Municipal Swimming Pool (David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim)

During the depression years of the 1930s the WPA (or the PWA) funded and built a number of municipal pools across the country. Several were built in Iowa, but most of these have either been modified or demolished (such as the splendid one at Dubuque). The swimming-pool building at Decorah presents a sophisticated version of the Streamline Moderne style, realized in reinforced concrete. The long, horizontal entrance pavilion with its pattern of three entrance doors has curved ends. Just below the dark horizontal band of the parapet is a thin horizontal vent opening into which the name of the pool has been inserted in letters using the Broadway typeface. The higher center block of the building has sets of five glass-brick windows, one set to the front and one to the rear.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim
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Data

What's Nearby

Luther College
Ashmore Farm Group (now part of Luther College)
City Stone Mill (Painter-Bernatz Mill)
Norris-Miller House (now part of Norwegian-American Museum)
Curtin House

Citation

David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim, "Decorah Municipal Swimming Pool", [Decorah, Iowa], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/IA-01-NO108.

Print Source

Buildings of Iowa, David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 380-380.

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