Life of Pi’s Famous Pool Reopens in Paris

Since 1989, the Piscine Molitor – Paris’s most glamorous interwar swimming spot and namesake of Yann Martel’s fictional hero – has been dry as a bone. Where the world’s first bikini model strutted her stuff and Tarzan once served as lifeguard, graffiti artists have been busy tagging and ravers have been busy, well, raving. In fact, a 2001 dance party run by French collective Heretik saw a 5,000-strong crowd occupy the space.

But as of Monday, the indoor pool has been re-filled and re-opened in yet another incarnation. It is now part of a luxury 124-room MGallery hotel, complete with gym, spa, restaurant and bar. And the privilege of visiting for a day comes at the whopping cost of €150 (about $220).

Both the 33-metre pool and the 50-metre lido have received a somewhat controversial renovation. Of the original façade, designed by Lucien Pollet, only one small section remains. But the architect behind the changes, Jean Phillipe Nuel, defends them. "We tried to conserve the dialogue between past and present," he told The Guardian. "For example, in the lobby under the original two-metre high ceiling (now mirrored) is a Rolls Royce bought by Eric Cantona, tagged by the American graffiti artist JonOne."

Nuel has also managed to preserve several distinguishing Art Deco features, including the mosaics, stained glass images of bathers, blue doors and green railings crucial to Pollet’s original vision: that the Piscine Molitor should resemble an ocean liner.

All the fancying up is perhaps less in keeping with Martel’s artistic decisions. The long-surviving, spiritually explorative Pi received his name because his “honorary uncle”, Mamaji, had told his father: “If you want your son to have a clean soul, you must take him one day to swim in the Piscine Molitor”. No mention of an enormous bank account.

Via The Guardian.