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In spite of what the famous song popularized by the group "The Refrescos" in 1898 proclaimed, there was a beach here, Well, well! It was in 1931 when Luis Gutiérrez Soto, one of the best architects of Spanish rationalism, created one of the forgotten jewels of the capital: the swimming pool of La Isla. An islet of approximately six thousand square meters and shaped like a boat that emerged from the calm waters of the Manzanares River to offer an extraordinary place for bathing and social recreation to the people of Madrid at the time.
Inaugurated in 1932, La Isla had been oriented downstream as if it were a real ship. It had a bathing area at the bow and another at the stern, as well as a covered swimming pool inside the bridge (all of them bathed with filtered and chlorinated water from the river itself). She also had a cafeteria, gymnasium, solarium and party room. Its design splashed nautical inspiration, between curved facades with large glass surfaces or porthole-like windows, and was in tune with the avant-garde architectural trends in Europe. A few years after its opening, the Spanish Civil War broke out.
A conflict that plunged Madrid into one of its darkest periods, but which proved insufficient to wreck the colossal infrastructure, despite suffering the heavy onslaught of a shell from the national side. However, it did not suffer the same fate in 1947 when periods of torrential rain and more than one overflowing of the river forced to undertake channeling works in the Manzanares, which sank La Isla forever in 1954.
The swimming pool built by Gutiérrez Soto for the republican consistory of Madrid was one of the most beautiful and busiest places in the capital during the 20 years it remained afloat. For Madrid, this project was synonymous with modernity, since it was the first time that the novel European phenomenon of social clubs landed. This was the reason why it set sail as a project reserved for the elite of the time, although it eventually became popular among the different social classes. Thus, all the people of Madrid began to have a space to be able to endure the hot summer days.
