Competing Natatorium proposal from McCarter & Nairne, illustrated by Edward Thomas Osborn, U of W Collection
Vancouver’s unbuilt public natatorium and concert hall, English Bay (Sharp and Thompson, in conjunction with A.S. Wootton, 1920). Vancouver Archives Reference code: VPK-S98: LEG1969.09, via VanArchives. In this excellent article worth a repost, Sharon Walz writes:
Between 1916 and 1921, the Park Board Commissioners tried to build something grander at English Bay: a “natatorium”, a heated salt water swimming pool and baths for winter use.
In 1916, Commissioner W.R. Owen submitted to the Board the idea for a winter swimming facility to be built at English Bay. Park Board Engineer A.S. Wootton was charged with gathering information on the construction and operating costs of similar facilities in other cities, and in 1919 the Vancouver architecture firm of Sharp and Thompson was chosen to work with Wootton to develop a concept for a swimming pool building. On November 12, 1919, C.J. Thompson for Sharp and Thompson and A.S. Wootton jointly submitted a report to the Park Board, discussing various options for siting the new building…
In the end, the economic recession that occurred after World War I put an end to the dream of an English Bay leisure palace. The Park Board decided in 1921 that a by-law to raise the more than $75,000 estimated cost would be defeated by the voters. City Council had been resistant to the project from the beginning, and without their support it was doubly likely that appeals for funding would fail. The Board toyed with the idea of having the facility built and operated by a private company, but the few enquiries from local development companies in 1921 and 1922 came to nothing.
In the end, the only significant development after 1909 that took place in English Bay was the removal of the first public bathing pavilion across the street from Alexandra Park and its replacement with the current English Bay bath house.
Sharp and Thompson weren’t the only firm to pitch the idea of a Natatorium in Vancouver. McCarter & Nairne also had a competing vision for a Natatorium, as presented by architectural illustrator Edward Thomas Osborn (courtesy of the University of Washington’s collection). I’ve actually reblogged that building before, thanks to pasttensevancouver. It was an architectural battle of the bands of sorts, or perhaps a real city rivalry.
You see, Osborn had no doubt seen Marcus Priteca’s 1916 Crystal Pool Natatorium in Seattle in person (see The Architect, November 1916), and thus he produced this glorious rendition in colour, duly appointed in terra cotta and tile. Alas, few of Osborn’s renderings seem to have been built; he was much better at selling dreams than he was seeing his building to fruition, though to be fair, I don’t know if he was this building’s architect, or if he was primarily the illustrator.
A. S. Wootton would go on to engineer many of Vancouver’s parks, and is credited for building Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park (source). Seattle’s Natatorium ceased to be a pool when it closed in the late 1930s, and though the building saw alternate use since, it was demolished in 2003. Fortunately, the terra cotta was reclaimed for a new 24-story Seattle condo tower, Cristalla at 2033 2nd Ave, Seattle. Curiously, the condo website mentions the heritage architects Weber + Thompson responsible for the conversion, but fails to mention Priteca, instead calling the building “a terra cotta façade of an Italian Renaissance building built in 1906, the Crytal Pool.”