Art You Can Swim In

An article (A Pool with a View, August 21) from Deutsche Welle (in English) covers a crazy art project on a section of the Spree River in Berlin, a swimming pool anchored in the middle of the river:

Designed by Berlin artist Susanne Lorenz, the Spree swimming pool was fashioned out of a shallow river cargo container. It's a rectangle, 32.5 meters (106.6 feet) long by 8.2 meters (26.9 feet) wide and just over two meters (6.6 feet) deep.

The ship's filled with 400,000 liters (105,668 gallons) of fresh water that's been slightly chlorinated. The water is heated to a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius (75.2 degrees Fahrenheit). The pool has been filled so that its water level is almost even with the pool's edge, which itself is 70 centimeters (28 inches) above the surface of the river. "We wanted swimmers to be as close to the Spree as possible," Laurenz told DW-WORLD. "It allows swimmers to have views of the surrounding city while they swim."

Here are some great pictures of the Spreebrücke/Badeschiff. All I can say is that the latest example of Berlin's Stadtkunstprojekte beats panda or cow sculptures any day.