Roundabout Baths, Logroño

Leopold Banchini turns a busy traffic island into a ten‑day public pool for Concéntrico.

The first hint that something was different on Calle de la Duquesa wasn’t the plywood cylinder—it was the laughter. Drivers inching through the usual morning roundabout rolled down their windows to find neighbors peeling off sandals and stepping into a waist‑high pool where traffic normally commanded the view. Concéntrico’s visiting architect, Leopold Banchini, had thrown a rough timber ring around the municipal fountain and turned the traffic island into Logroño’s smallest public bath. From the sidewalk you saw only softwood studs and gray panels; from inside you heard splashes echo off curved walls and felt cool spray cut the early‑summer heat.

A narrow doorway led to a changing tower that smelled of fresh pine planks. Shoes slid under slatted benches; swimsuits replaced street clothes in seconds. Past the threshold the city soundtrack dulled—engines became a low hum—while jets of water shot up like liquid fireworks. Kids in neon trunks darted between columns of spray, daring each other to stand under the tallest plume. A retired couple waded out slowly, leaning on each other’s arms, then parked on a submerged ledge to let the water thump against their backs. College students lounged on the plywood rim, legs dangling in the pool, phones stashed in a dry corner with towels and tote bags. Steam drifted from a dark, hut‑like room just off the circle, where a shallow fire bowl heated stones for quick warm‑ups between dips.

The bath stayed for ten days—long enough for regulars to claim “their” bench, short enough to feel borrowed from the future. Then, as promised, the panels unscrewed, the studs stacked onto a flat‑bed, and the fountain reverted to its role as a roundabout ornament. But drivers now brake a touch as they pass, half expecting the laughter to return. For one bright week the city’s hardest piece of infrastructure became its most porous, proving you don’t need marble colonnades or spa robes to share water—just a circle of cheap timber, a little nerve, and an open invitation.