Milan is losing its public swimming pools just when they are needed most

The record-breaking heatwave that has thrown Europe into crisis happened just a few days ago. In Paris, discussions have reopened on how to protect historic monuments from extreme temperatures; Spain has recorded peaks above 45 degrees, and even Milan approached forty degrees over the past weekend.

In the Lombard capital, however, the heat has brought another issue to the fore: the feeling that, in the very summer when the city needs places to cool off most, a significant portion of its network of public swimming pools has become inaccessible.

Posts and comments have multiplied on social media, describing a Milan without swimming pools and, therefore, without climate shelters. But is this really the case?

Milan is a city with some of the most beautiful public swimming pools in Italy: the facilities of the large Università Bocconi campus, the public baths of the Ventennio, and the modernist masterpieces of the 1950s and 1960s.

Indeed, the Lombard capital is a true unicum among European cities. It does not overlook the sea, lacks a major urban river, and has no large natural bathing areas; but precisely for this reason, over time, it has attributed an incredible cultural and social value to its public swimming pools.

From the Piscina Romano and Secchi’s Bagni Misteriosi to Arrighetti’s Solari and Argelati, Milan’s public pools, especially outdoor ones, have historically played a role that went far beyond sport: they have been neighbourhood infrastructures, social spaces, and, during the most scorching summers, true climate shelters.

Yet, at the very moment when climate change makes them most necessary, a large part of the city’s main outdoor facilities is unavailable. Between closed pools, construction sites, and redevelopments, Milan’s summer offering has shrunk significantly, fueling the perception of a city left without water in its hour of need.

Today, in fact, among the large outdoor facilities, the Centro Balneare Romano in the Bovisa area, the Solari pool, the Sant’Abbondio in piazza Abbiategrasso, and the Bagni Misteriosi in Porta Romana remain available. The first three are managed by Milanosport, the municipal company that administers most of the city’s sports facilities and continues to guarantee affordable, popular admission prices. Meanwhile, the Bagni Misteriosi, managed by the Teatro Franco Parenti, have an entry fee that can reach up to 25 euros on weekends.

The issue, indeed, is not only how many facilities remain open, but also where they are located and how much they cost. With Lido and Scarioni closed since 2019 and Argelati since 2022, entire areas of the city have been left without a major public swimming pool as a reference point. For many Milanese, taking a swim this summer means crossing the city, moving to the hinterland, or budgeting for an expense that does not always appear affordable.

In part, this story begins in 2020 with a symbolic case: that of the Lido di Milano, the large sports complex in piazzale Lotto inaugurated in 1931 and considered one of the city’s most important architectures for leisure time.

In recent days, the Lido has returned to the centre of debate because more detailed renders and the schedule for the project that will accompany its reopening, scheduled for early 2027, have been released. The intervention, entrusted to the Spanish company Gofit in partnership with the Municipality of Milan, involves a profound transformation of the complex, with new swimming pools, gyms, fitness areas, and wellness services.

Rather than the architectural project itself, what is causing discussion is the management model: the transition from a traditional municipal swimming pool to a sports infrastructure entrusted for decades to a private operator. And the Lido in Lotto is not the only similar case.

The same company, Gofit, is also at the centre of a second redevelopment: that of the Piscina Scarioni in the Niguarda area, which has also been closed since 2019. While for the Lido, citizens’ protests remained mostly online, the Scarioni has become the focal point of a real local mobilization: at the end of May, around two hundred people organized a flash mob in front of the structure to demand the preservation of popular rates and the facility’s public vocation. Neighbourhood committees and a petition that gathered thousands of signatures have grown around the pool.

While the Lido and the Scarioni illustrate the era of public-private partnerships, the history of the Piscina Argelati seems to follow the opposite trajectory. The news broke just a few days ago: the Municipality of Milan announced an investment of approximately 28 million euros for the rebirth of the so-called “lido dei Navigli”, closed since 2022. 

Unlike the other two cases, the Argelati will not be privatized. The administration’s stated goal is to keep management under Milanosport and transform the facility into a public structure open twelve months a year.

The project, still being finalized, includes new green and shaded areas, improved accessibility, new services, and greater integration with the Navigli neighbourhood. It is also one of the first cases in Milan where a swimming pool is being explicitly rethought as climate adaptation infrastructure, a place to find relief during increasingly extreme summers.

Not all redevelopment stories, however, have a happy ending. There is also the case of the Piscina Cambini Fossati, reopened in 2023 after nearly thirty years of closure and a reconstruction intervention costing over four million euros, only to become unusable again just two years later due to structural problems with the roof.

And then there is the Centro Sportivo Saini, one of the city’s largest sports complexes located in Parco Forlanini, a stone’s throw from Linate and now easily accessible via the M4 metro line: it has been waiting for a profound redevelopment for years, and its future remains a subject of discussion.

Varying situations that have nonetheless contributed to the same perception: that of a city waiting for its swimming pools for far too long, and where promised reopenings still struggle to translate into new, effectively accessible places.

In short, have Milan’s swimming pools truly disappeared, or is the wait for new ones simply becoming too long? Describing Milan as a city that has completely lost its public swimming pools would be, at least for now, an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that the city finds itself in the middle of a long and complicated transition.

The problem is that this transition coincides with the hottest summer in its recent history and with a new awareness: swimming pools are not just sports facilities, but climate infrastructures, local community spaces, and essential public services. Because, in an era of increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves, staying cool is also becoming a matter of access. Or, as climate scientists increasingly define it, of “cooling privilege”: the privilege of being able to afford places to escape the heat.

Featured image: The Guido Romano Swimming Pool in Milan. Photo by omnia_mutantur on Flickr