Mosaic sparks listed bid
Concern over the future of an art mosaic in a Calderdale swimming pool.
CONCERN OVER the future of an art mosaic in a council swimming pool earmarked for closure has sparked an attempt to get the building which houses it listed.
The pool, built in the 1960s at Skircoat Road, Halifax, is deemed to be past its best and three years ago proposals were made by Calderdale Council that the pool site could be earmarked for a major new car park if it was demolished.
The council is committed to building a new leisure centre which would incorporate a swimming pool on the site of the existing leisure complex at North Bridge, Halifax, last autumn committing £900,000 to progress planning.
Some further public consultation sessions were to have been held this spring but are on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A social media conversation began on Twitter with one commentator, Dr Otto Saumarez Smith, raising the question of what would happen to the pool’s distinctive internal mural.
This grew into other commentators questioning the future of the building, culminating in the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to save “outstanding buildings and design that have shaped the British landscape since 1914”, announcing that its casework team is drafting an application to get the building listed.
The council says upgrading the existing pool is not costeffective but adds that no final decision about the future of the old building has been made.
Dr Smith, who is an Assistant Professor in Architectural History at the University of Warwick’s History of Art Department, describes the mural, titled “British Pond Life” as “an ebullient mid-1960s ceramic
Our casework team is busy drafting a listing application for this 1964-66 swimming pool
mural by Kenneth Barden and Tweeted: “It is part of Halifax Swimming Pool, a fine building itself, which the council are proposing to demolish (for a car park). Isn’t it gorgeous…”
By early this month, the Twentieth Century Society said: “Our casework team is busy drafting a listing application for this 1964-66 swimming pool, which Calderdale Council proposes to demolish.
“It features some amazing ceramic murals depicting ‘British Pond Life’ by Kenneth Barden.”
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