Piscine Léon Pille dite « La Cheminote »

English translation

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History

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the S.N.C.F. entrusts to Pierre Dufau the reconfiguration and modernization of the physical education ground built in the early 1920s alongside the railway workers' housing estate of Amiens. The architect creates a reception building for the swimming pool, which also includes changing rooms and showers to replace the wooden cabins arranged until then along the basins. Modern apparatus for water filtration and purification are furthermore installed. The Léon Pille swimming pool thus preserves the attraction of open air whilst offering clean water and quality services. Pierre Dufau creates a building of great modernity, which relies on simple and functional volumes, sober concrete mouldings and particular attention to circulation. The balance of masses, the contrasts between straight lines and curves, the equilibrium between voids and solids are all elements which counterbalance the rationalism and economy of means necessary in the face of the shortages of the immediate post-war period. The Léon Pille swimming pool is thus emblematic of the issues of the Second Reconstruction of the town of Amiens.