Modernist penguin pool is beyond repair, says architect's daughter

2019-01-08T19:10:00-05:00

Zoo workers withdrew the birds from Berthold Lubetkin’s 1934 Penguin Pool after it was claimed the concrete was causing them a bacterial infection known as “bumblefoot”. His daughter Sasha said it was “terribly sad” to see her father’s design sitting unused in the zoo. “Perhaps it’s time to blow it to smithereens.”

As a truly rare example of architecture at a non-human scale, Berthold Lubetkin’s 1934 Penguin Pool at London Zoo is a Modernist classic. But it has been disused for several years, given the fact that its concrete ramps were giving the penguins a bacterial infection known as “bumblefoot.”

Since the penguins have moved to a larger and more accommodating enclosure, the original penguin pool has been quietly crumbling in an abandoned section of the zoo.

Should the original Penguin Pool be restored for historical value, or should it exist only as images of an impossible penguin utopia?

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Modernist penguin pool is beyond repair, says architect's daughter