Poplar Baths

Poplar Baths on East India Dock Road, Poplar, is a former public swimming and bathing complex built 1932–4 for Poplar Borough Council. The building was designed by Harley Heckford, the Borough Engineer, and R W Stanton, Chief Assistant. It combines a reinforced concrete frame with exterior walls of brown and red brick, stone dressings to the front, and concrete cladding to the upper sections of the stepped side elevations. The roof is asphalt with numerous rooflights, and there is a brick chimney to the rear.

The building originally housed a large "first class" pool designed to function as a swimming pool in summer and an entertainment hall with a stage in winter, separated by changing rooms from a smaller "second class" pool intended for year-round use. Beneath the changing room block is a suite of vapour or Turkish baths with a plunge pool. Offices occupy the front of the building, while a boiler house sits to the rear.

The front elevation is a monumental tripartite composition of three stepped brick masses. It features a stone plinth and cornice, with stone surrounds to a central steel centrepiece. Massive brick pilasters and pylons create an effect reminiscent of Egyptian architecture and contemporary Dutch architecture, as well as the work of Sir Giles Scott. A banded brick cornice sits above the second floor, and deep brick mullions frame full-height steel staircase windows on either side. The tripartite centrepiece comprises two storeys. The first floor has large windows to former cloakrooms, separated by steel panels with a 2+3+2 rhythm of double doors with angled steel handrails. The borough crest and original signage reading "PUBLIC BATHS" occupy the centre. The side elevations are simpler, with bands of windows beneath rendered lintels. The glazed roof steps up in three flights above the first floor. The rear elevation expresses the steel frame, with two large areas of glazing on either side and smaller glazing around an ancillary entrance to the filtration plant.

The interior constitutes the building's special architectural interest. The first class pool sits beneath a ten-bay reinforced concrete hyperbolic rib structure supporting an innovative glazed roof that brought natural light into swimming baths. Although the pool has since been infilled and spectator seating removed, tiling to the stage surround survives, complete with the borough coat of arms, as does tiling to the rear wall. The second class pool has conventional roof lights in a flat roof.

The entrance hall features staircases on either side, fully tiled to shoulder height with banding on the stairs and granolithic tiled floors. Steel staircase balustrades sit atop the tiling. Similar staircases descend to the tiled Turkish or vapour baths. These were extended in 1937 with foam baths, and a lounge was adapted with washing facilities in the 1960s. The original stepped plunge pool remains. One slipper bath survives in the entrance hall as a memorial. The foyer ceiling displays murals of 1985 by David Bratby, depicting the history and function of the baths.

Poplar Baths was the first British swimming pool to employ stepped rooflights supported on a reinforced concrete hyperbolic frame. The stepped glazed roof concept derives from the Crystal Palace, while the hyperbolic concrete arch form originated with the Orly Airport hangars. These concepts had earlier come together in exhibition hall design, as seen in the Gothenburg Exhibition Halls and the New Royal Horticultural Hall, Westminster, and in the listed pool at Butte-aux-Cailles, Paris (1922–4). Poplar was the first British building to develop this idea for a low-cost civic structure and stands above its contemporaries in architectural importance. At the time of its completion, it was described in the Architect and Building News (19 January 1934) as "one of the finest and best equipped baths of comparable purpose in this country". The design inspired a number of imitations among progressive authorities, though few survive. Since its closure in 1988, the building has gained increasing appreciation from architects and critics, including Piers Gough, who described it as "a stunning building with its Hollywood style interior and beautiful vaulted ceiling."