Nordbad

The Nordbad is a public open-air swimming pool in Erfurt, set beside the Gera in the northern edge of the Nordpark. Built in the early 1920s, it was once one of the largest and most modern open-air pools in Germany. The main building follows the ideas of the Dutch Expressionist movement, the Stuttgart School and the Bauhaus, with a long symmetrical façade and flat roofs inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. The pool complex includes a heated fifty-metre competition pool, a heated learner pool with slides and a current channel, a separate diving pool with a one-metre board and a three- and five-metre tower, and a small children’s pool. In its heyday it drew up to 370 000 visitors a year and hosted international swimming events, including a 1936 match between Germany and Great Britain. After decades of use the baths were closed in 2006 and reopened in 2010 following a complete rebuild. Visitors enter through the modernised entrance building and descend to the pool area by a twelve-step terrace. The main pool is lined with limestone and framed by the wide green lawns of the Nordpark. The Gera cycle path passes the entrance, linking the pool to the rest of the city.