Art Deco beauty La Piscine in Roubaix shines with spring exhibition dedicated to sculptors Rodin and Bourdelle

From pioneering public swimming pool to one of the most beautiful museums in France, Art Deco masterpiece La Piscine continues to be showered with eulogies.

The 1932 pool and baths built for textile workers in the northern France industrial town of Roubaix is a showcase for the region’s art and industry.

Complementing its stunning architecture and eclectic permanent collections are engaging temporary exhibitions. The new spring offering dazzles with a show pitching the giants of modernist sculpture in an enlightening artistic duel, Rodin/Bourdelle Corps à corps.

Adding to the museum’s allure are a series of ceramic works, Pool Dance, by French contemporary artist Elsa Sahel and a display of women’s underwear from the 20th century in the show Sens dessus dessous. A further seasonal attraction is a loan of six sculptures from the Camille Claudel Museum.

More than a backdrop to these collections and exhibitions is the daring design of the original building by progressive Lille architect Albert Baert. Inspired by monastical sites, it boasts imposing red-brick exterior walls dotted with vacant arched windows, a cloister-like courtyard garden and soaring iron-vaulted pool space resembling a divine chapel. The outstanding features of the latter centrepiece are two stained glass windows in the form of sunbursts – an iconic Art Deco motif - that bathe the interior in golden light.

The innovative complex was originally commissioned by Roubaix’s socialist mayor Jean-Baptise Lebas. It gave local workers and their families the opportunity to learn to swim while also providing them with much-needed bathing facilities. From the outset, it was a place where all social classes mixed.

But by the 1980s, industrial decline had resulted in the pool being abandoned and the building left in severe disrepair. A political climate favouring the decentralisation of culture in France assisted a major renovation between 1998 and 2001. This transformed the site into a major museum harbouring numerous regional fine and applied art collections. An extension into the adjacent roofless ruin of a weaving plant created additional contemporary space for galleries, while the former pump room became a busy restaurant.

The sensitive approach to the building’s original architecture included retaining part of the pool. This strip of shallow water draws the gaze, reflects the surrounding sculptural figures and is a joyful reminder of the site’s previous identity. It is not the only original feature. Among the gleaming Art Deco details are geometric-patterned balustrades, cream glazed tiles embellished with green grouting. Meanwhile, the former changing cabins lining the two balconies now operate as singular and intimate exhibit spaces.

Today, La Piscine continues its mission of inclusivity, functioning as an emblematic heritage site for a town on the outskirts of Lille that continues to suffer the loss of its former industrial prowess.

20th century master sculptors side by side

A challenging confrontation that endured for 50 years and forged an artistic journey influencing 20th century modernism lies at the heart of the flagship exhibition Rodin/Bourdelle Corps à corps (until 1 June).

It presents some 170 sculptures, drawings and photographs from numerous collections, including the Rodin Museum in Paris. Illustrating the intense personal and professional relationship between the two titans of sculpture, the exceptional show pits the genius of Auguste Rodin against the emerging talent of Antoine Bourdelle.

Although Rodin was the senior by 20 years and initially employed Bourdelle in his studio as an artisan practitioner, theirs was not a master student relationship, but more akin to a collaboration and occasional rivalry.

The themed rather than chronological exhibition shows their works side by side, highlighting the areas where their practice concurred or diverged and proved pertinent to the history of sculpture during this turn of the century period. It also includes some of the artists and personalities who joined them on this path, including Camille Claudel, Isadora Duncan, Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier.

The exhibition opens with an imposing bust of Rodin by an admirative Bourdelle. “This bust of God with horns and a beard referring to Michelangelo's Moses is not a caricature of the artist but rather a tribute," explains Lili Davenas, curator of the Bourdelle Museum in Paris.

The varying styles of the two sculptors is glaringly obvious in their two towering figures of Adam. Rodin's earlier version is inspired by Michelangelo; its muscular presence and tortured pose convey a sense of torment. Bourdelle’s more classical figure is fashioned with his head in his hand to represent despair.

A series of hand sculptures are varied in approach while sharing a comparable vitality. Rodin succeed in infusing these studies with an energy equal to his large-scale works; Bourdelle applies a more geometric quality. An impressive display of torsos follow, which exude a similarly still yet intense power.  

It was at this point that we see Bourdelle diverge aesthetically from his senior. The friends clashed creatively: Rodin pursued an instinctive urge to capture life force while Bourdelle explored a more minimalistic ethos. Another disparity developed in that Rodin made sculptures for museums while Bourdelle turned his attention to public spaces. It makes for an enlightening and poetic dialogue.

Contemporary artist Elsa Sahal also models fragments and hybrid body forms, turning her gaze in particular to the female form in her biomorphic ceramics. Pool Dance (until 1 June), the title itself an example of her playfulness, presents curved and sinuous limbs wrapped around black poles. Her writhing dancing figures are inspired by Degas’ ballerinas as well as Rodin’s sketches for his sculptures.

In a further dialogue with the setting, Sahel’s totem-like Fontaine sculpture presides over the far end of the water basin. Atop, a truncated female figure pees a stream of water into the pool below. Encased within the open-doored changing cabin spaces, her Maillots de bain series is another amusing nod to the museum’s original identity.

The cabins in the above gallery are a fascinating testament to the evolution of underwear to outerwear in Sens dessus dessous (until 8 June).  An array of outfits presented on mannequins show styles by designers, including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Angelo Tarlai and Lolita Lempicka. “It raises the question of modesty, of the limit between public and private space. Inventiveness is not left out,” says Amélie Boron, responsible for La Piscine’s fashion collection.

La Piscine
Rue de l’Esperance 23
Roubaix
France

Photos: La Piscine archive photo; Eve Fairfax by Rodin ©Aagence photographique du musée Rodin, Pauline Hisbacq; Antoine Bourdelle Le Poète ou Le Jour et la Nuit ©Paris Musées/Musée Bourdelle; Auguste Rodin Adam ©Musée Rodin, photo Christian Baraja; Fountain by Elsa Sahel; Lolita Lempicka