Strandbad Plötzensee

The Strandbad Plötzensee sits on the south-west shore of the Plötzensee in Berlin’s Wedding district. It was built in 1922 as a public swimming place and is now a protected open-air lido. The lake lies within a large green space that also includes the Volkspark Rehberge and Goethepark. The Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal runs along its north edge, while the Seestraße and A100 motorway run 400 metres to the south. The site has grown from earlier bathing spots dating back to the 1820s. A military swimming school opened in 1824, followed by a small city-run beach in the 1840s. In 1906 a private wave bath with a 50-metre pool and gas-powered waves attracted up to a thousand visitors at once. The present lido was designed by Rudolf Germer and built between 1922 and 1928 by architects Johannes and Walter Krüger. Visitors today find a long sandy beach framed by a curved 250-metre retaining wall and two pavilions with slate roofs. Inside the marked swimming area there is a 50-metre pool, smaller teaching pools and a 5-metre diving tower with a waterslide added in the 1950s. The surrounding promenade links to the Volkspark Rehberge, and on hot days the beach can draw crowds of up to ten thousand people.