My stadium pool -
An exhibition with swimming pool

First swimming attempts, the love of your life or friends forever. The Stadionbad has always been associated with memories of summer experiences. For almost 90 years, the Stadionbad has been an important place for many Frankfurt citizens. The second exhibition of the participative exhibition format, City Lab on the move, revealed the swimmers’ experiences and memories and told the long story of the oldest open-air swimming pool in Frankfurt. Project blog
Documentation
Film

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  The idea behind the exhibition came from a small group of passionate early swimmers, the Freunde des Stadionbades e.V. Meetings were held over a period of around one and a half years, to work together on themes, content and organisational matters. The exhibition took place at the Niederräder Freibad Stadion, on 58,000 m² of land and in the swimming pools under water.
The participative idea was also implemented during the exhibition: Certain elements of participation were integrated to encourage people visiting the swimming pool and exhibition to provide their personal view and integrate their story into the exhibition directly and immediately and also online. The exhibition itself encouraged visitor participation and got visitors actively involved.
  The intention was to bring the history of the pool, spanning almost 90 years, back to life. The long history of the location was made visible to visitors at the pool in a chronological order.
Objects of memory, such as swimming badges and pictures, were on show thanks to a collection campaign. Film interviews with memories of the outdoor pool in the 1930s to 1980s supplemented the historical part.
The second focus of the exhibition was on the work that took place behind the scenes of the pool.  An exemplary daily schedule put the work of the employees into focus. The employees at the Stadionbad were accompanied in their work for an entire day from 5 am to 10 pm and their activities were documented. This provided examples to demonstrate the effort and technology required to keep the outdoor pool and the 52,900 m² facility in operation. The cooperation with the employees at the Stadionbad turned out to be very close over the months of the project because the exhibition was held at their workplace.
Thirdly, the swimmers themselves had their say. We wanted to know about their habits and their favourite places. Brief interviews that took place in summer 2011 resulted in a “typology of swimmers” over the course of time. A total of five pool type users were presented in the exhibition: water babies, sun worshippers, tower jumpers, posers and early swimmers. We also went looking for more types of pool users in the 2012 swimming season.
  A diverse supporting programme accompanied and complemented the exhibition, examining certain aspects and taking a closer look at them. The programme offered guided tours on the history of the Stadionbad and walks revealing the technology underneath the pool. Furthermore, the interview station on the Stadionboat on Wednesdays gave visitors the opportunity to talk about their own view of the pool.  Sporty visitors didn’t miss out either: underwater photos and trial diving left hardly anything to be desired. It was even more important to make sure the voices of the main users of the pool were heard: children and young people! In a project week with the JKWF in June 2012, new exhibition content was developed for this purpose, which was supplemented in the exhibition.
  Students at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Design Department, under the direction of Professor Ursula Gillmann worked on the exhibition design with great dedication for two semesters. A total of 16 trainee designers from the Graphic Design and Product Design departments contributed to the exhibition. The focus was primarily on using the entire swimming pool site in the exhibition and to exploit existing resources. With this in mind, the rubbish bins were transformed into eye-catching pieces and the diving platform was made into an exhibit. In addition, objects of former times were to be made visible again. The safety conditions of the swimming pool and the monument protection requirements posed a particular challenge for the design, which is why the site and its users had  to be treated with a great deal of care. The remaining exhibition elements were intended to blend in naturally with the environment to enable a new perspective on what people were accustomed to.
  Freibad Stadion,
Mörfelder Landstr. 362,
60528 Frankfurt am Main
  The exhibition is a production by the City Lab on the moveand was initiated by the Freunde des Stadionbads e.V., designed by students in the Design Department at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and realised as a cooperation project with BBF GmbH, the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, the Jugend-Kulturwerkstatt Falkenheim Gallus e.V. and the Kinder- und Jugendkulturwerkstatt Break 14, Niederrad.
 
Overall management: Jan Gerchow
Project management: Susanne Gesser
Curator: Sonja Thiel
Museum team: Angela Jannelli, Katja Weber
Co-curators: Sunna Gailhofer, Guido Leson, Frauke Schulz, Matthias Thoma, Alexander Urban, Petra Voll

Lenders: Thomas Bauer, BBF GmbH, Dieter Church, Andrea Dauth, Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, Ursula Mahner, Modehaus August Pfüller, Gudrun Thomale

Contemporary witnesses: Ernst Czaronek, Uzit Dagan, Bernd H., Eldrid & Dorothee Kallenbach, Karl Kraus, Kurt Kraus Helmut Mühlmann, Klaus Dieter Fischer, Feli Gürsching, Gerhild Kirschner, Ursula Mahner & Barbara Steinmark, Ernst G. Straub, Irmgard Walther-Zeising, Renate Wirth (†).

Interview partners 2011/12:
Ahmad&Navin&Yanina, Aki, Alex, Anna, Matthias Aul, Silvie Bitter, Björn, Heiner Börger, Simone Bremicker, Clemens, Christian, Christoph, Dennis, Dirk, David & Lukas Drexler, Georg Graf Vitzthum von Eckstädt, David Günther, Florian Auer, Florian Gutbrod, Fam. Groenecke, Maria Heinrich, Linda & Tanita Henrich, Fred Herbst, Michael Hinz, Inka, Jan, Johannes, Johannes, Stefan Junk, Derkan Kamyshev, Emma & Roger Kiem, Ralf Kreuzmann, Manu & Isabell Kunze, Lars, Lorenz, Veronika Loth-Markmiller, Moritz Meder, Edda Niedermayer, Alexander Nikolopoulos, Laura Padgett, Lutz Otto, Regina, Paul und Ole Rissmann, Steffen, Steven, Syle, Tobi, Tobias, Ümit, Vera, Michael Vukelic, Zwi Wasserstein, Joachim Wegmann, Yannic

Team at BäderBetriebe Frankfurt GmbH:
Hans Peter Adam, Benjamin B., Artur Borack, Petra Krebs, Bernd Nauheimer, Christian Treu

Design:
Students at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Design Department, Professor Ursula Gillmann.
Winter Semester 2011/2012 designs:
Alexander Brade, Ferdinand Drechsel, Tomke Fertig, Malte A. Frischemeier, Ekin Gülhan, Janina Halbig, Laura Sofie Hantke, Maria Katharina Hofmann, Rebecca Jopski, Nicole Lössner, Carmen Mauerer, Stefanie Müller, Philipp Ostermann, Paola Fernández Pio, Sara Spoerecke, Gordon Wehowsky
Implementation in Summer Semester 2012:
Ferdinand Drechsel, Tomke Fertig, Janina Halbig, Rebecca Jopski, Nicole Lössner, Stefanie Müller, Philipp Ostermann, Paola Fernández Pio, Sara Spoerecke, Gordon Wehowsky
Irem Kurt/contemporary witness film

Photographic support for the exhibition:
Katrin Streicher, www.katrinstreicher.com

Support programme/vernissage
Kinder- und Jugendkulturwerkstatt Break 14: Aicha Bakhecha, Swantje Dahlen, Houda Hach - Mimon, Verena Halbe, Lesly Luzolo, Cordula Roth, Florian Wäldele, Isabell Weisgerberg, Valentina Weisgerberg, Cornelia Zippel.
Jugend-Kultur-Werkstatt Falkenheim Gallus e.V.: Georg Bachmann, Julia Isterling, Anne Jacoby Inmaculada Cuadrado Luque, Petra Väth
Georg-August Zinn school: Anja Hondelmann & Veli-Eren Beyaz, Marco Bruch, Lorena Di Rosa, Sabrina Esteves-Alturas, Gocobija Hamza, Eleni Gotzivelaki, Yasemin Hamankhail, Mehmet Hoplamaz, Icöz, Buse, Illunga, Elie, Usamah Ishtiaq, Gariijs Jegorovs, Yasmin Jiab, Arnold Klein, Alina Krolov, Simona Leikute, Lukas Moscato, Amira Naoir, Jennifer Pless, Alisa Saban, Daniel Sakyi, Steven Schmalhofer, Sahra Scholz, Lisa Shala, Nikolina Varsamis, Florian Walch, Alessia Zappietro

Emanuel Müller & the synchronised swimmers of the Frankfurter Volleyball Verein
Susanne Beyer, Anke Rubien & Divers from the Höchster Schwimm Verein
Michael Müller, BäderBetriebe Frankfurt GmbH
Inge & Jogi Schricke, Tauchschule Diver's pro World GmbH

Many thanks to the other contributors: Stephan Bauer, Thomas Bauer, Gabriela Betz, Martin Bruch, Benedikt Burkard, Martha Caspers, Nina Gorgus, Carolin Jaeger, Heike Kaiser, Monica Kingreen, Christian Peukert, Emma Spelman, Gudrun Thomale, Christian Väth, Horst Ziegenfusz

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