This building houses and Olympic sized pool and was designed by Peter Hemingway who created this award-winning design. It is recognized in Edmonton as an excellent training facility for swimmers and fitness-minded individuals.
In an article in the Edmonton Real Estate Weekly, by Lawrence Herzog (Inside Edmonton | Vol. 23 No. 41 | October 13, 2005 ) the pool is described as:
"On September 29th, Coronation Pool was rededicated the Peter Hemingway Fitness and Leisure Centre.
When Peter Hemingway set out in 1967 to design a new Olympic-sized pool for Edmonton as a Centennial project, he found inspiration at the National Gymnasium and Pool in Tokyo, Japan. Hemingway's take on the idiom was unlike anything most of us had ever seen.
He devised a masterpiece of wood, concrete, steel, cables and glass that brought the outside in and captured the majesty of the crest of a wave and the rolling landscape of Alberta mountains and prairies. His design for Coronation Pool, constructed north of 111th Avenue and west of 135th Street between 1968 and 1970, was remarkable, visionary and internationally acclaimed. Nearly 40 years later, architects still look to the award-winning design for inspiration.
Edmonton architect Vivian Manasc and colleagues with the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) fought long and hard to convince the city to name the pool after Hemingway. On September 29th, the Coronation Fitness and Leisure Centre was rededicated the Peter Hemingway Fitness and Leisure Centre.
Finally, well-deserved recognition for Hemingway, who passed away in 1995 at the age of 65. His mark on the Edmonton landscape includes not only the pool in Coronation Park, but also the Muttart Conservatory and Central Pentecostal Tabernacle.
Coronation was a Canadian Centennial project and its name was taken from the park in which it resides. The facility was officially opened to the public by Mayor Ivor Dent on July 3, 1970. Its total cost was $1.2 million.
I was just a boy then, living in nearby Sherbrooke, and I used to ride my bike and the bus down to the park to watch giant cranes lifting the roof elements into place atop hundreds of panels of glass. I was enthralled by how the entire structure was anchored in place by massive steel cables, held to precise tautness by giant turnbuckles.
The summer the pool opened, we eagerly headed over for a swim. Adult admission was 50 cents and children under 14 were charged 15 cents. After years of swimming in windowless concrete bunkers like O'Leary and Victoria, this was a new adventure to be cherished.
With a massive 450,000 gallon tank (more than two million litres), it was a way deeper and a lot bigger than any other Edmonton pool of its time. I remember a buddy and I came tearing out of the locker room and launched ourselves into the shallow end of the pool.
He couldn't swim very well and flailed around for a few seconds until the lifeguard arrived and plucked him back onto the deck. Little deep for you, huh?
Ya, my friend sputtered. I was too busy staring at the sagging roof, wondering how on earth it was being held up, to notice his distress. From inside, the architecture seems even more improbable, yet it works masterfully.
Deep as it is, the pool, which was envisioned as an Olympic size, turned out to be about a foot too shallow to permit said competitions. In 1970, Coronation received the highest honour in Canada, the Massey Medal for Architecture, and Peter was the first Albertan to receive the prestigious award.
He went on to design the Muttart Conservatory, which opened in 1976. The four glass pyramids, built in the lap of the river valley at 96th Street and 96th Avenue in Cloverdale , were chosen for striking visual effect and the practical requirements for plant growing heights.
Hemingway knew the pyramid shape, static and non-directional, would provide stark contrast to their natural setting, and would become a showpiece for the city. He was right.
The $1 million project features two pyramids of with 660 square metres of floor space and heights of 24 metres while the other two pyramids are slightly smaller at 381 square metres and 18 metres in height. They've got room for hundreds of species of plants and each pyramid is kept at a precise temperature and humidity, mimicking arid, temperate and tropical climates.
Hemingway also oversaw the renovation of the historic Tipton Block. The 1911 block at 10355 Whyte Avenue was given a new lease on life by the Old Strathcona Foundation, with a $400,000 project that commenced in 1979.
In making the announcement of the rededication of Coronation Pool last month, a press release from the City paid tribute to Peter Hemingway as eccentric, outspoken and passionate. He was dedicated to the arts and believed in the power of architecture to transform ordinary places into vibrant, active community spaces that would improve the quality of life for citizens.
When Peter passed away at the age of 65 on May 15, 1995, many felt that his legacy to architecture and to Edmonton should be remembered by naming his most memorable accomplishment after him. The renaming initiative gained momentum through the efforts of Manasc and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. The initiative was highlighted when Edmonton hosted the RAIC's annual conference in 2005, and it gained the support needed to be approved by Edmonton City Council Executive Committee on June 29, 2005.
The structure, with its peculiar magic, has had more than its share of tales and legends.
In late 1967, more than a year before construction began, the Edmonton Public School Board considered building a tunnel to connect the pool to Ross Sheppard Composite High. But the $30,000 tab for the 70-metre tunnel was decided to be too extravagant and the tunnel was never built.
My favourite story (and I cannot confirm if it true or not) involves early problems with the glass panes cracking. Consultants were summoned, there was considerable scratching of heads and then, weeks later, somebody spotted a maintenance man tightening a turnbuckle on one of the steel cables outside.
These are too loose, he explained, torquing down on the troublesome nut. Nobody had bothered explaining that the equilibrium of the design required some cables to be slack and others to be taut. He put away his wrench and the windows stopped cracking. "
See: http://www.rewedmonton.ca/content_view2?CONTENT_ID=1195