Place
Summer swimming pool
A Functionalist complex of 1933 on Sokolský ostrov, nicknamed little Budějovice Barrandov. The fifty-metre pool was meant to be the largest in all of then Czechoslovakia — and people were already swimming in it a year before it was finished.
The summer outdoor pool on Sokolský Island is a large open-air baths right in the centre of Budějovice, a few minutes’ walk from the square, in a Functionalist complex of 1933. It was called little Budějovice Barrandov — and people were already swimming in its pool a year before it was finished.
After reconstruction in 2010 there is a large pool with five lanes and a slide, a children’s pool with a paddling area and a spout, a beach and seating for two hundred people. Capacity is fourteen hundred people an hour — and even so then-mayor Miroslav Tetter said at the opening that in summer one pool is not enough for the town.
Right beside it stands the indoor swimming stadium, open all year. The outdoor pool itself is open in summer, daily from half past nine to eight in the evening.
The predecessor of today’s pool stood elsewhere and was thirty years older. In 1899 Budějovice Sokol set up its own pool below the Vltava weir by Přední mill — at today’s blind arm of the Malše. They enlarged it several times. Then came the regulation of the Vltava, carried out in the town in 1927–1930, which changed the shape of the river. The old pool vanished after it.
The new complex rose on Sokolský ostrov. Architects Karel Chochola and Stránský–Šlégl shaped a Functionalist leisure precinct from 1930 to 1933. According to Schinko people were already swimming in the pool in 1932 — a year before formal completion. The fifty-metre basin was meant to be the largest in then Czechoslovakia; the lakeside terraces earned it the nickname little Budějovice Barrandov.
Walk the whole island, not only the water: the 1930s idea of free time is still readable in the concrete, the terraces and the sightlines to the river.
On site
Sokolský ostrov is a whole precinct, not only a pool. It is worth walking round — a Functionalist complex of the 1930s that shows how leisure was imagined then. Try to find where the…
Timeline
- 1899 — Sokol si zřizuje plovárnu pod vltavským jezem u Předního mlýna
- 1927–1930 — regulace Vltavy; stará plovárna zaniká
- 1930–1933 — na Sokolském ostrově se staví nový areál podle návrhu Karla Chocholy
- 1932 — do bazénu se chodí ještě před dokončením
- 4. 6. 1933 — slavnostní otevření „plovárny a slunečních a sprchových lázní"
- 2009–2010 — kompletní rekonstrukce
- 2017–2019 — menší úpravy, nový tobogán a vířivka
Sources
- https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/bydleni-budejovicti-se-dockali-letni-plovarny-do-peti-let-mozna-bude-dalsi-49435 — znovuotevření 21. 7. 2010 po rekonstrukci za 73 mil. Kč (7/2010)
- https://www.archiweb.cz/en/n/home/ceske-budejovice-pocitaji-s-druhou-letni-plovarnou — kapacita 1 400 osob/h, primátor Tetter: jedna plovárna nestačí (20. 7. 2010)
- https://iscus.cz/kraje/jihocesky/pasport/20426 — dnešní parametry: 5 drah, skluzavka, dětský bazén s brouzdalištěm a chrličem, hlediště 200 míst
- https://budejcka.drbna.cz/spolecnost/35404-drbna-historicka-plovarna-v-ceskych-budejovicich-vznikala-tri-roky-lide-tam-ale-chodili-pred-dokoncenim.html — Jan Schinko, Drbna historička, 7. 7. 2022. Klíčový zdroj: Karel Chochola a ateliér Stránský–Šlégl, stavba 1930–1933, koupání už 1932, otevření 4. 6. 1933, rozměry bazénu a nárok na největší v ČSR, srovnání s Barrandovem, polední hodina úředníků a palubovka proti slunci, most PLOVÁRNA a jeho zboření
- https://encyklopedie.c-budejovice.cz/clanek/plovarny-a-koupaliste — sokolská plovárna z roku 1899 u Předního mlýna a její zánik po regulaci
- https://encyklopedie.c-budejovice.cz/clanek/sokolsky-ostrov — přestavba ostrova, vybavení areálu
- https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaveck%C3%BD_stadion_v_%C4%8Cesk%C3%BDch_Bud%C4%9Bjovic%C3%ADch — rekonstrukce 2009–2010 a 2017–2019
- https://szcb.icardgroup.cz/oteviraci-doba — aktuální otevírací doba (23. 8. 2026)
- https://www.kszcb.cz/cenik-letni-plovarny — ceník od 1. 1. 2026 (23. 8. 2026)