1933 - Blue Baths. Rotorua. New Zealand.
S 38° 08.175 E 176° 15.480
60H E 434974 N 5778807
The Blue Baths building is nationally and internationally significant for its associations with the history of tourism, and for its rarity as a building type. The building is unique as a Spanish Mission-style geothermal baths in New Zealand.
Waymark Code: WM56WP
Location: New Zealand
Date Posted: 11/20/2008
Views: 11
First opened in 1933, the Spanish Mission building with its elegant Art Deco highlights was designed by John T Mair. In its heyday young and old experienced the hitherto unknown joys of mixed bathing - for fun!
Mixed bathing in liquid light… such was the promise of pleasure used to entice visitors to Rotorua’s Blue Baths in the 1930s.And they came in their droves, lured by the luxury of it all.
Readers of a 1936 tourist brochure were tempted by a glamourous vision: “White-tiled…sparkling blue waters…submerged lighting…diving towers…sun balconies…richly furnished rest room.
The lavish design was the creation of Public Works Architect John T Mair, inspired as much by the need to escape the drabness of the Depression as by the images of clean and cool Californian architecture which flickered on the screens of the fabulous moving picture palaces of the day.
Website link for the History of the Blue Baths
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