As a teenager I
spoke to observed, Crystal Palace Sports Centre creates a sense of
connectedness between the different activities. Part of the presence of the
building is to do with how you are aware of, for example, a Jiu-Jitsu
competition taking place while you are engaged with the meditative process of swimming
lengths in the 50m pool.
In the spatial
presence of these activities I would like to propose an equality between the
potentially less framed activities of having a cup of tea in the café, or
getting changed - with the sports activities for which the building and grounds
are designed to make space for and draw attention to, such as diving or
athletics.
These different
activities, which take place in or around the sports centre generate and
suggest different types of physical relationships with the building. This is
true of the way that the different movements dictated by various sports occupy
the space, the velocity and types of movements engendered, as well as the relationships
they set up between different sports people.
In Lefebvre’s
chapter, ‘Spatial Architectonics’ in ‘The Production of Space’ (Lefebvre: 1974)
he explores, ‘not bodies in general, nor corporeality but a specific body, a
body capable of indicating direction by a gesture, of defining rotation by
turning round, of demarcating and orienting space.’ There is a sense of the specificity
of movements interacting with the demarcated interior of the building.
Several users
of the building reflected on the different conditions and relationships set up
by the building. Dominating the space and creating a presence as soon as you
enter the building is the 50 m Olympic size swimming pool. The presence is
visual as a huge stretch of water bouncing off light, but it also generates
particular sounds and smells. The interior
temperature of the whole building is coolish by the standards of swimming
pools. I assume the swimmers happy to take on the Olympic scale are not so worried
by this.
It lies next to
floor to ceiling length panelled glass demarcating the pool from the park. The
pool thus transmits a brilliant reflective glowing presence on a sunny day. On
a more overcast day or after dark it has a stronger reflection from the lights
inside the building. The courts on the opposite side of the building are often
used for competitive team sports sometimes with large crowds, like basketball.
The presence and
space of the building is also felt acoustically. As Lefebvre describes,
‘In a cloister
or cathedral space is measured by the ear: the sounds, voices and singing
reverberate in an interplay analogous to that between the most basic sounds and
tones; analogous also to the interplay set up when a reading voice breathes new life into a written text.
Architectural volumes ensure a correlation between the rhythms that they
entertain (gaits, ritual gestures, processions, parades, etc.) and their
musical presence. It is in this way, and at this level, in the non-visible,
that bodies find one another.’ (Lefebvre: 1974, p224)
