The world's largest swimming pool is located in Algarrobo, a tourist area in Chile. It measures more than one kilometer in length and has an extension of 8 hectares, or 77 thousand square meters. If these numbers say nothing then just imagine that it has the same length as 20 Olympic facilities lined up. The largest swimming pool in the world can hold two and a half million litres of water, which is pumped, filtered and purified directly from the Pacific Ocean.
The cleaning of a tank of this size is only possible thanks to a technology patented by the Chilean engineer Fernando Fischman, which allows the purification of unlimited volumes of water. The same technology will be adopted for another artificial lagoon in Sharm El Sheik, which is preparing to be the largest pool in the world, with an extension of 12.5 hectares. Other mega plants are under construction in various tourist locations around the world: Argentina, Greece and, obviously, Dubai.
The one that surrounds the resort of San Alfonso del Mar creates a dream scenario: surrounded by palm trees and white sand, it is in direct proximity to the cold and stormy waters of the ocean, which are separated only by a narrow strip of beach.
The swimming pool of San Alfonso del Mar is so large that it is possible to sail it by canoe or sailboat. Given its size this could be the perfect setting for a Hollywood drama, maybe a good action movie with a wild chase on the water. After all, swimming pools are the perfect movie set for unforgettable scenes. There are some very famous ones thanks to the influence of cinema, which have become protagonists and central in the memory of the audience and history.
The one in Something's Got to Give (1962) is famous as the last setting in which Marilyn Monroe starred before her death. The actress swims happily naked in a classic masonry pool, with a typical steel staircase, in a scene that will be forever remembered as "Marilyn's swim".
The protagonist of an entire film directed by French director Jacques Deray, La Piscine (1968) is the location of the erotic drama between Jean-Paul and Marianne (played by Alain Delon and Romy Schneider). In a late 1960s Saint Tropez, what was supposed to be the symbol of comfort and summer relaxation is transformed into a murder location.
If we then return to California in the mid-1970s, the empty pools are the protagonists of the film Dogs of Dogtown (2005). It was among the facilities that were disused due to drought that three young people from Venice Beach transferred the surfers' "flights over the water" onto the asphalt, forever revolutionising the world of skateboarding.
Speaking of swimming pools, it is impossible not to mention A Bigger Splash, which is not only the film directed by Italian director Matteo Guadagnino in 2015, but above all the famous painting by David Hockney, which portrays as if it were a Polaroid the squirts of a pool in a classic villa in Los Angeles. On the occasion of his retrospective at the Tate Museum in London, the artist says: “When you photograph a splash, you’re freezing a moment and it becomes something else. I realise that a splash could never be seen this way in real life, it happens too quickly. And I was amused by this, so I painted it in a very, very slow way.”
Place of seduction or a drama, scene of a fight or a comedy, setting for a musical or a dystopian future... What could be the best story for the biggest pool in the world?