Schwimmverein Donaukanal
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Project Description
Schwimmverein Donaukanal is a grassroots community initiative that aims to normalise swimming in Vienna's Danube Channel. Looking back at the history of swimming in the channel, we strive to reclaim these 850 000 square meters of liquid public space and bring Donaukanal swim culture and its natural ecosystem back to the Viennese way of life. SV DK activates this forgotten public space through the mere act of swimming and weaves a social fabric of courageous, pioneering urban swimmers.
Geographical Scope
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
»Swimming in general, but even more so in the Danube Channel is a courageous and radical act.« said a first-time Donaukanal swimmer, coming out of the flowing water in the heart of Vienna, smiling. We are Schwimmverein Donaukanal – a bottom-up community initiative aiming to normalise urban swim culture in Vienna's Danube Channel. Our key objective is to reclaim Donaukanal and its 850.000 square meters of liquid public space, our main means for such transformation being the act of swimming itself.
By revitalising the Channel we want to address universal topics on a local level and act upon them on the city scale. The project started off as a project of social design students two years ago. Now it is an official association with more than 150 official members and many more supporters. We act through cooperations with other initiatives along the Channel on a city-level, as well as with actors of other "swim cities" such as Berlin, Budapest. We encourage independent and considerate urban swimming in the Channel and advocate for joyful, refreshing, exciting and calming floating in this 17-km long natural arm of the Danube.
SV DK is a social design initiative, rich in research findings on diverse topics, such as historic urban swimming culture and swim water quality, while participatory and socially engaged in praxis. Our aim is to revitalise the Danube channel that will help Vienna face challenges of the 21st century like overheating in cities, lack of common space for citizens and mass tourism.
We are agile on several platforms but mostly by being personally present in the cityscape through the act of swimming. SV DK invites all stakeholders of Donauakanal to co-design its future - the tourist ship companies, local politicians of district and city levels, swimmers, water athletes, architects, activists, gastronomy businesses, ecologists and researchers. We are pleading for a possible future scenario: a healthy, safe and accessible Danube Channel for all.
Key objectives for sustainability
»A bottom-up movement to show what is possible. The city makes certain rules and people follow, but sometimes you have to show the public and the city government that there are also different ways. Then things will change. By the simple act of swimming in the channel we show the public that they have to rethink their existing view on the river.«
As SV DK we feel the responsibility to work towards cleaner, safer river waters. Today, Donaukanal is perceived publicly as dirty water that can only be used for ship traffic. We challenge this public opinion and encourage citizens to interact with Donaukanal directly - as it is, in fact, not hazardous and legally allowed to swim there. Urban swimmers pay attention to and care for rivers. Rise of urban swimming is a catalyst for rethinking our city water management systems. For instance, it is hazardous to swim in rivers at high water levels or during heavy rainfalls, due to water pollution from overflowing canalisation systems. As more citizens will swim in Donaukanal and use it actively, public opinion will also grow clearer and stronger in favour of implementing a closed and resource-saving water cycle. The citizens will encourage city officials to tackle water pollution at large (including contamination with micro-plastics & antibiotics) urgently. And of course, the channel does not stand in isolation, but is a part of the multinational Danube river area. So the safety and well-being of the Viennese swimmers depends on the clean Danube and more sustainable water management system all across the river. Regular water quality checks and regulations for both the swimmers and the ship traffic are needed for a cleaner Donaukanal.
Parts of Donaukanal banks are concrete-free, vegetated and offer direct access to the water - we use the banks to go swimming. The channel, thus, offers shade and cooling opportunities during heatwaves and makes Vienna resilient towards climate change.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
»To be honest, usually I wouldn’t go into this water. You also ‘swim with your eye’.«
»It was a crazy experience, to change perspective, to share the perspective of the water.«
The site of the Danube Channel as we visually know it today was mainly created by Otto Wagner in the early 20th century with elements of Art Nouveau. Otto Wagner intended the space around the water to be a recreational axis through the city. However, this concept was not activated and the Danube Channel has been a neglected space for a long time. For the past 5-10 years, the Danube Channel has transformed and is now frequented by masses. In the early 20th century swimming in the Channel was also a common practice, particularly for the working class and for the local Jewish community.The visual identity we create is, thus, a bridge to the past swim culture of the Danube Channel. By swimming there today, through the architecture of the space, one is integrated into a bigger historic context. Our branding elements also refer back to the aesthetics of Jugendstil.
Swimming in the current of the Danube Channel is an intense present experience. Being on eye level with the water provides a new perception of the cityscape, its built and natural environment. As the water carries your body through the city you discover new details: floating on your back under one of the many bridges, for example, opens the door to discover hidden perspectives on the city. Being fully immersed in the urban water brings you into a very intimate relationship with the city.
Passerby watch swimmers emerge out of Donaukanal, their drenched swimwear and wet bodies and through this gaze, discover the obvious yet uncommon way of enjoying the site - swimming the site.
The perspective on the city changes for the person that is swimming in the Danube Channel and at the same time, the new swimming culture is creating a new visual layer in the cityscape of Vienna.
Key objectives for inclusion
»Swimming in the Danube Channel created a sense of belonging to the city of Vienna, for me as a foreigner.«
The idea behind SV DK is that a low-threshold common activity, such as swimming together in the Danube Channel, can be so contagious that it weaves a new social fabric in the city. The number of our association's members is growing and the members come from diverse backgrounds in age, gender, race and education, among other factors. Yet, they unite in the pleasurable activity of floating in the urban environment together. Non-consumption and low-threshold (only a swimming bag needed) free-time activity creates a sense of belonging to the Viennese community and a sense of ownership, encouraging swimmers to take responsibility for their environment. By entering the channel, swimmers transform the water body into a [liquid] common space, where equal participation is possible. Swimmers stay connected and communicate online to find "swim buddies" for swimming together and claim small rituals of pre- and post-swim common activities from the Viennese bathing culture, such as enjoying pommes frites after the swim. SV DK's and its members' informal use of the present built infrastructure and subtle site-specific interventions prove that community building and citizen-engagement are crucial components of placemaking, rather than mass public spending on new infrastructure and built environment add-ons.
Our cooperations and public events - such as thematic educational walks, guided audio swimming tours and gatherings at Alser Community Garden and Kunst Haus Wien Museum Garden reach a wide range of audiences. Our weekly regular table format is a participatory exchange platform, where members discuss everything from swim bags to city politics, non-consumption public spaces and environmental protection.Random encounters through the act of swimming turn us into amenable advocates of the Danube Channel, as we engage in heated and lively conversations with amazed gazers.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
SV DK is critical of the presumptions of how the Danube channel can be used in the city. Our main act of disobedience - the act of swimming is participatory and peaceful by design, we invite citizens to take part in it and connect. We are bottom-up - a member association that runs through transparent crowdfunding and has a team of dedicated volunteers of diverse backgrounds. Our design and practice is well-informed and site-specific: we are aware of the contextual complexities that surround our main goal and we are aware of visual codes, cultural references and untapped potentials of the cityscape that we can claim for activation of the Danube channel. For instance, we repurpose swim and bathing related aesthetics, infrastructure and popular culture elements to spread our message in the city; we refer back to site-specific, context-specific pioneering practices and communities in our work, such as the Hakoah Verein Wien - the Jewish sports association that had a unique connection to Donaukanal due to the fact that Jewish communities mainly lived in the 2nd district of Vienna, directly at the bank of the channel. We are local in a non-exclusive sense - we believe in everyday tourism and fostering joyful, good places for locals that visitors are welcome to share and take part in. We are social by design - we are always open for collaborations, for new members and encounters. We feel responsibility for bringing swimmers' needs to the city's agenda, but, at the same time, encourage self-reliance in our member swimmers to navigate the urban waters at their own risk and pace, using togetherness as a visibility shield. We are inventive: having originated in the first Covid-19 lockdown in spring 2020, we added value to the Viennese lifestyle, while locals were unable to travel for pleasure. We generate new knowledge, develop new tools and frameworks and find effective ways to disseminate information and exchange perspectives.
