The 1950s began a period of gradual independence for Singapore. The nation removed itself from British political structures and established its own governmental bodies to guide public policy and the design of the physical environment. In the recreational lives of Singaporeans, this post-war period was also a dawning ‘age of swimming pools’. The continuing growth of international shipping lanes and shipbuilding industries made ocean swimming unpopular, and national land reclamations landlocked the previous seaside tidal pools. Local bathing cultures, which had once looked outward to the edges of the island, started looking inland as the policy of building more public pools became official urban strategy. When the Housing and Development Board planned new towns, they included swimming as a key public amenity. The Jurong Town Corporation similarly found it essential to incorporate swimming into its development of industrial estates and workers’ housing.

In this paper we study the design and political context of swimming in Singapore, concentrating on facilities built between the 1960s and the 1980s. Such examples of the spectacle of modern leisure architecture provided images of glamour among the brutalist housing estates. More importantly, we argue, these examples also relate to the spectacle of the body beautiful. Singapore’s threatened attitude in the 1960s led to a new military service system and necessitated a culture of readiness – this manifested in national fitness programmes, and body displays in the form of “Sport For All” events and military parades. For the good of the nation, Singaporeans were taught to be agile, physically fit, and military minded. Ready access to swimming pools both provided an avenue for nationally-sanctioned exercise regimes, and contributed to shaping a positive image of the new nation’s material aspirations. This paper deals with themes of architecture, leisure, and fitness, and aims to contribute to a wider understanding of the experience of modernity in republican Singapore.