# Intimacy Exposed: Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom

Javier Fernandez Contreras, Roberto Zancan

► To cite this version:

Javier Fernandez Contreras, Roberto Zancan. Intimacy Exposed: Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom. Javier Fernandez Contreras; Roberto Zancan. Spector Books; HEAD – Genève, 1, 2023, COLUMN, Javier Fernandez Contreras, 978-3-95905-583-3. halshs-04212621v2

HAL Id: halshs-04212621

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04212621v2

Submitted on 21 Mar 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

Public Domain
# Intimacy Exposed: Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom

Javier Fernandez Contreras, Roberto Zancan

► To cite this version:

Javier Fernandez Contreras, Roberto Zancan. Intimacy Exposed: Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom. Javier Fernandez Contreras; Roberto Zancan. Spector Books; HEAD – Genève, 1, 2023, COLUMN, Javier Fernandez Contreras, 978-3-95905-583-3. halshs-04212621v2

HAL Id: halshs-04212621

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04212621v2

Submitted on 21 Mar 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

Public Domain
<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

COLUMN ISSUE 1

CONTENTS

**INTIMACY EXPOSED:** An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms and Restrooms
Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan 03
**MODERN PLUMBING** Alexandra Midal 09
**ON DISPLACEMENT** Toilets are very special places
Michael Jakob 16
**A BATHROOM FOR A DANCER** Catherine Ince 22
**HYGIÈNE POPULAIRE (NOTHING FANCY)** Mariana Siracusa 29
**FROM STUD TO STALLED!** Social Equity and Public Restrooms
Joel Sanders 33
**GRADUAL INTIMACY** Philippe Rahm 40
**UNDRESSING METHODOLOGIES** Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka 45
**DOWN THE HALL TO THE RIGHT?** A glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms
Andrés García Pruñonosa 65
**SPOT ON** Josiane Imhasly 76
**STONED IN THE BATHROOM:** An Attempt to Control the Blue
Jérôme Nager 82
**ROTOR:** Seven tales about toilets
Renaud Haerlingen 87
**DEVICES, SPACES, ACTIONS AND PLACES FOR BODY CARE** elii's Works through Toilets
Eva Gil Lopesino 93
**(VERIFICA INCERTA)**... into the hole
Roberto Zancan 102

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

1925

EXPO.
ARTS. DÉCO.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

ISSUE 1 (2023)

INTIMACY EXPOSED

Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom

Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

SPECTOR BOOKS
ISBN 978-3-95905-583-3

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

9 783959 055833

SPECTOR BOOKS HEAD - GENÈVE
<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

COLUMN ISSUE 1

CONTENTS

**INTIMACY EXPOSED:** An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms and Restrooms
Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan 03
**MODERN PLUMBING** Alexandra Midal 09
**ON DISPLACEMENT** Toilets are very special places
Michael Jakob 16
**A BATHROOM FOR A DANCER** Catherine Ince 22
**HYGIÈNE POPULAIRE (NOTHING FANCY)** Mariana Siracusa 29
**FROM STUD TO STALLED!** Social Equity and Public Restrooms
Joel Sanders 33
**GRADUAL INTIMACY** Philippe Rahm 40
**UNDRESSING METHODOLOGIES** Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka 45
**DOWN THE HALL TO THE RIGHT?** A glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms
Andrés García Pruñonosa 65
**SPOT ON** Josiane Imhasly 76
**STONED IN THE BATHROOM:** An Attempt to Control the Blue
Jérôme Nager 82
**ROTOR:** Seven tales about toilets
Renaud Haerlingen 87
**DEVICES, SPACES, ACTIONS AND PLACES FOR BODY CARE** elii's Works through Toilets
Eva Gil Lopesino 93
**(VERIFICA INCERTA)**... into the hole
Roberto Zancan 102

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

1925

EXPO.
ARTS. DÉCO.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

ISSUE 1 (2023)

INTIMACY EXPOSED

Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom

Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

SPECTOR BOOKS
ISBN 978-3-95905-583-3

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

9 783959 055833

SPECTOR BOOKS HEAD - GENÈVE
INTIMACY EXPOSED
INTIMACY EXPOSED
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

ISSUE I
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom Edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

ISSUE I
INTIMACY EXPOSED
INTIMACY EXPOSED
## INTRODUCTION

Intimacy Exposed

An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms, Restrooms

Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

### INTIMACY EXPOSED

"Toilet" is a euphemism, the fruit of a figure of speech more than a metonymy. In contemporary Western societies, this ultimate area of privacy received its name in a process of extension and social exchange. Our social need for polite, indirect expressions to designate a place dedicated to evacuation in a public context (e.g. trains, buildings, and urban parks) transformed what was initially a piece of fabric into an item of furniture, then into a room, and finally into a place filled with other things. It was only once the facility was placed in a room that the "petite toile"—the lace-lined linen resting on a shelf where vases, brushes, and any other items required for personal hygiene were placed—became a "toilet".

Because of this transition from a two-dimensional item to an object, then a room, and finally an environment—which often acts as a meeting place—the toilet is a formidable tool to reflect on the current circumstances of interior architecture. It is useful in describing the private and collective features of past and present health, sexual, clinical, and hygienic appliances. It is also a place where we can understand the exchanges between individuals and communities, subjects and behavior, and even between bacterial-plant-animal organisms and humankind.

In its varied shapes and sizes, the toilet addresses the obscurity of the relationship between body and space. The persistence of the French term, even in distant cultural contexts, reflects its connection with the process of affirmation of personal hygiene imposed by modernization. As a portmanteau word, the toilet has traveled the world. Occasionally, it returns and shows both proximity and distance from its aristocratic-bourgeois origin. This
## INTRODUCTION

Intimacy Exposed

An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms, Restrooms

Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan

### INTIMACY EXPOSED

"Toilet" is a euphemism, the fruit of a figure of speech more than a metonymy. In contemporary Western societies, this ultimate area of privacy received its name in a process of extension and social exchange. Our social need for polite, indirect expressions to designate a place dedicated to evacuation in a public context (e.g. trains, buildings, and urban parks) transformed what was initially a piece of fabric into an item of furniture, then into a room, and finally into a place filled with other things. It was only once the facility was placed in a room that the "petite toile"—the lace-lined linen resting on a shelf where vases, brushes, and any other items required for personal hygiene were placed—became a "toilet".

Because of this transition from a two-dimensional item to an object, then a room, and finally an environment—which often acts as a meeting place—the toilet is a formidable tool to reflect on the current circumstances of interior architecture. It is useful in describing the private and collective features of past and present health, sexual, clinical, and hygienic appliances. It is also a place where we can understand the exchanges between individuals and communities, subjects and behavior, and even between bacterial-plant-animal organisms and humankind.

In its varied shapes and sizes, the toilet addresses the obscurity of the relationship between body and space. The persistence of the French term, even in distant cultural contexts, reflects its connection with the process of affirmation of personal hygiene imposed by modernization. As a portmanteau word, the toilet has traveled the world. Occasionally, it returns and shows both proximity and distance from its aristocratic-bourgeois origin. This
1 A paraphrase of the famous "Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans", from the fifht dialogue of Marquis de Sade, *La philosophie dans le boudoir*, 1795.

journey through manners, meanings, and locations has
also gradually produced an extension of the toilet to in-
corporate various objects, places, and spaces. Antibagno
(Italian), boudoir (French) and closet (English) are just
three examples of the many environments where the
toilet has extended its domain over time.

The closer we look at the toilet, the more it looks at us
from afar. The more we sit on it, the more we think of
the world. It was in the boudoir that the Marquis de Sade
drafted his most radical manifesto and his philosophical
discourse on freedom, morals, and revolutionary religion:
"Yet Another Push, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Re-
publicans." (1) Architectural space is not indifferent to this.
Manfredo Tafuri evoked the Sadian pamphlet to entitle his
famous article on the radicalization of the political inter-
pretation of architecture, *L'Architecture dans le boudoir*.

An analysis of sanitary and others spaces dedicated to
personal care, a privacy observatory as it were, helps to
assess social changes in depth and decide how we can
intervene to directly improve the everyday lives of today's
users, how to tackle and resolve conflicts of use between
individuals of different sexes and ages in public places,
how to raise the quality of public and private health and
increase the comfort of housing, work, and leisure. Ob-
serving these issues, we are prompted to explore the
forms and meanings of bathrooms and private spaces in
relation to their different functions, including their use
as transgressive and informal meeting places and pla-
ces of inevitable, forced social coexistence, with a view
to transforming these issues into crucial aspects in the
disciplines of design and interior architecture. Recently

they have been the focus of several scientific contributions
and exhibitions such as *Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Every-
day Life* at the Wellcome London Collection in 2011, (2)
the *Toilet* display section in *Elements of Architecture* at
the Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2014 curated by
Rem Koolhaas, (3) *Fatberg* at the Museum of London in
2018, (4) the Sheffield Hallam University's study, *About
the toilet: a research project report about what makes a
safe and accessible toilet space (2015-2018)*, (5) books
like *Remaking the John: The Invention and Reinvention
of the Toilet* by Francesca Davis Di Piazza, (6) and many
others listed in the annotated bibliography at the end of
this volume.

This book takes a new step in this field of research with
a series of scientific and artistic interventions, starting
with an evaluation of the diversion of uses of "wet areas"
in social life, contemplating the evolution of the use of
furniture, in order to understand the forms and meanings
of details and objects in domestic bathrooms and public
toilets. The buildings, environments, events, stories, ar-
tistic expressions, and case studies presented here show
how necessary it still is to highlight the nature of certain
daily needs, still hidden despite their crucial role in our
lives. They show that looking at society's evolution in the
most intimate aspects of human life is not only a way to
comprehend our needs better, but also a way to protect
them from misunderstanding and control. In this sen-
se, the hypothesis presented herein is that the analysis
of places of intimacy reveals architectural postures as
well as unexpected uses, and facilitates the development
of new proposals which can generate relevant working

2 Tala Burki, "Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life," *The Lancet Infectious Diseases*, vol. 11, no. 6, 2011.
3 Irma Boom et al., *Elements of Architecture: Toilet*, vol. 11 (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2014).
4 Museum of London, "Fatberg! Exhibiting the 'Monster of Whitechapel'," https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/exhibiting-fatberg-monster-whitechapel, accessed June 5, 2018.
5 Charlotte Jones, Jen Slater, *Around the Toilet: a research project report about what makes a safe and accessible toilet space* (Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, 2018).
6 Francesca Davis Di Piazza, *Remaking the John: the Invention and Reinvention of the Toilet* (Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group, 2014).
1 A paraphrase of the famous "Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans", from the fifht dialogue of Marquis de Sade, *La philosophie dans le boudoir*, 1795.

journey through manners, meanings, and locations has
also gradually produced an extension of the toilet to in-
corporate various objects, places, and spaces. Antibagno
(Italian), boudoir (French) and closet (English) are just
three examples of the many environments where the
toilet has extended its domain over time.

The closer we look at the toilet, the more it looks at us
from afar. The more we sit on it, the more we think of
the world. It was in the boudoir that the Marquis de Sade
drafted his most radical manifesto and his philosophical
discourse on freedom, morals, and revolutionary religion:
"Yet Another Push, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Re-
publicans." (1) Architectural space is not indifferent to this.
Manfredo Tafuri evoked the Sadian pamphlet to entitle his
famous article on the radicalization of the political inter-
pretation of architecture, *L'Architecture dans le boudoir*.

An analysis of sanitary and others spaces dedicated to
personal care, a privacy observatory as it were, helps to
assess social changes in depth and decide how we can
intervene to directly improve the everyday lives of today's
users, how to tackle and resolve conflicts of use between
individuals of different sexes and ages in public places,
how to raise the quality of public and private health and
increase the comfort of housing, work, and leisure. Ob-
serving these issues, we are prompted to explore the
forms and meanings of bathrooms and private spaces in
relation to their different functions, including their use
as transgressive and informal meeting places and pla-
ces of inevitable, forced social coexistence, with a view
to transforming these issues into crucial aspects in the
disciplines of design and interior architecture. Recently

they have been the focus of several scientific contributions
and exhibitions such as *Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Every-
day Life* at the Wellcome London Collection in 2011, (2)
the *Toilet* display section in *Elements of Architecture* at
the Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2014 curated by
Rem Koolhaas, (3) *Fatberg* at the Museum of London in
2018, (4) the Sheffield Hallam University's study, *About
the toilet: a research project report about what makes a
safe and accessible toilet space (2015-2018)*, (5) books
like *Remaking the John: The Invention and Reinvention
of the Toilet* by Francesca Davis Di Piazza, (6) and many
others listed in the annotated bibliography at the end of
this volume.

This book takes a new step in this field of research with
a series of scientific and artistic interventions, starting
with an evaluation of the diversion of uses of "wet areas"
in social life, contemplating the evolution of the use of
furniture, in order to understand the forms and meanings
of details and objects in domestic bathrooms and public
toilets. The buildings, environments, events, stories, ar-
tistic expressions, and case studies presented here show
how necessary it still is to highlight the nature of certain
daily needs, still hidden despite their crucial role in our
lives. They show that looking at society's evolution in the
most intimate aspects of human life is not only a way to
comprehend our needs better, but also a way to protect
them from misunderstanding and control. In this sen-
se, the hypothesis presented herein is that the analysis
of places of intimacy reveals architectural postures as
well as unexpected uses, and facilitates the development
of new proposals which can generate relevant working

2 Tala Burki, "Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life," *The Lancet Infectious Diseases*, vol. 11, no. 6, 2011.
3 Irma Boom et al., *Elements of Architecture: Toilet*, vol. 11 (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2014).
4 Museum of London, "Fatberg! Exhibiting the 'Monster of Whitechapel'," https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/exhibiting-fatberg-monster-whitechapel, accessed June 5, 2018.
5 Charlotte Jones, Jen Slater, *Around the Toilet: a research project report about what makes a safe and accessible toilet space* (Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, 2018).
6 Francesca Davis Di Piazza, *Remaking the John: the Invention and Reinvention of the Toilet* (Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group, 2014).
suggestions for better solutions for the needs of an in-
creasingly complex and multi-ethnic future society.

This consideration of studies and projects on the subject
aims to resume an adjourned "state of the art" on the
issues concerning the use and design of spaces for per-
sonal hygiene and to relaunch a specific area of expertise
in which the Department of Interior Architecture at the
Higher School of Art and Design (HEAD) in Geneva could
be a center for discussions about these arguments.

The texts in this volume, largely written for the De-
cember 2018 seminar entitled "Intimacy Exposed: Toilet,
Bathroom, Restroom" (organized by the Department of
Interior Architecture at HEAD - Genève to cover a diversity
of fields) present a practice-based study of the recent
past of modernist technologies and a vision of the future
of personal and collective practices regarding the realm
of the toilet. (7) Multiple forms of knowledge are gathe-
red here in an applied type of research that uses design,
projects, creativity, and artistic expression as tools to in-
vestigate and interpret social and functional problems and
produce concrete, "liveable", three-dimensional, tangible
solutions for these problems. In this context, an inter-
national scientific meeting was a methodological choice
as a first step to address the research topic. The seminar
brought various perspectives on the theme to the fore and
produced a critical discussion in a dynamic social event.
Divided into separate sections, it brought together those
who have conducted research on the subject or have
played a consolidated role in the production of know-
ledge in the fields of physical intimacy and health with
less consolidated or emerging experts—selected on the

basis of an open call for contributions—including young
researchers, PhD students, and emerging artists, all of
whom were interested in questioning the space of health
and personal care and had already published research on
the topic. The seminar was funded on the basis of equal
gender participation.

This book reflects the diversity and complementarity of
the seminar participants: museum curators, mass me-
dia journalists, art gallery owners, filmmakers, design
researchers specializing in resolving gender and health
problems, historians, architects, and builders. The re-
search presented at the seminar was an opportunity to
share fundamental data about new and little-explored
scientific experiments, crossing different disciplinary and
epistemological perspectives. From the design perspec-
tive, with discussion centered on interior architecture,
the seminar produced critical debates about the need
to develop spatial situations that cancel the problems of
sexual segregation, responses to new needs for intimate
places in collective buildings, and new functions to make
the toilet space safe and accessible to all in terms of age,
social conditions, etc.

For an overview of what is discussed in the book, Ale-
xandra Midal, professor of design history and theory at
HEAD - Genève, questions the symbolism of plumbing.
Starting with a comparison between Marcel Duchamp's
urinal bought in a shop and Le Corbusier's bidet, taken
from a catalog of industrial sanitary ware, she goes so far
as to demonstrate how sexual manipulations of aesthetic
objects and furniture in 20th century art could explain
the eradication of women by modernists in the history

<footnote n="7">7 Jean-Pierre Greff, Lysianne Léchot Hirt and Anne-Catherine Sutermeister, "Les défis de la recherche en art et en design en Suisse. Un cas d'école: la HEAD - Genève," *Hermès*, La Revue 72, no. 2 (Paris: C.N.R.S. Editions, 2015): 75-84, https://doi.org/10.3917/herm.072.0075, accessed June 5, 2018.</footnote>
suggestions for better solutions for the needs of an in-
creasingly complex and multi-ethnic future society.

This consideration of studies and projects on the subject
aims to resume an adjourned "state of the art" on the
issues concerning the use and design of spaces for per-
sonal hygiene and to relaunch a specific area of expertise
in which the Department of Interior Architecture at the
Higher School of Art and Design (HEAD) in Geneva could
be a center for discussions about these arguments.

The texts in this volume, largely written for the De-
cember 2018 seminar entitled "Intimacy Exposed: Toilet,
Bathroom, Restroom" (organized by the Department of
Interior Architecture at HEAD - Genève to cover a diversity
of fields) present a practice-based study of the recent
past of modernist technologies and a vision of the future
of personal and collective practices regarding the realm
of the toilet. (7) Multiple forms of knowledge are gathe-
red here in an applied type of research that uses design,
projects, creativity, and artistic expression as tools to in-
vestigate and interpret social and functional problems and
produce concrete, "liveable", three-dimensional, tangible
solutions for these problems. In this context, an inter-
national scientific meeting was a methodological choice
as a first step to address the research topic. The seminar
brought various perspectives on the theme to the fore and
produced a critical discussion in a dynamic social event.
Divided into separate sections, it brought together those
who have conducted research on the subject or have
played a consolidated role in the production of know-
ledge in the fields of physical intimacy and health with
less consolidated or emerging experts—selected on the

basis of an open call for contributions—including young
researchers, PhD students, and emerging artists, all of
whom were interested in questioning the space of health
and personal care and had already published research on
the topic. The seminar was funded on the basis of equal
gender participation.

This book reflects the diversity and complementarity of
the seminar participants: museum curators, mass me-
dia journalists, art gallery owners, filmmakers, design
researchers specializing in resolving gender and health
problems, historians, architects, and builders. The re-
search presented at the seminar was an opportunity to
share fundamental data about new and little-explored
scientific experiments, crossing different disciplinary and
epistemological perspectives. From the design perspec-
tive, with discussion centered on interior architecture,
the seminar produced critical debates about the need
to develop spatial situations that cancel the problems of
sexual segregation, responses to new needs for intimate
places in collective buildings, and new functions to make
the toilet space safe and accessible to all in terms of age,
social conditions, etc.

For an overview of what is discussed in the book, Ale-
xandra Midal, professor of design history and theory at
HEAD - Genève, questions the symbolism of plumbing.
Starting with a comparison between Marcel Duchamp's
urinal bought in a shop and Le Corbusier's bidet, taken
from a catalog of industrial sanitary ware, she goes so far
as to demonstrate how sexual manipulations of aesthetic
objects and furniture in 20th century art could explain
the eradication of women by modernists in the history

7 Jean-Pierre Greff, Lysianne Léchot Hirt and Anne-Catherine Sutermeister, "Les défis de la recherche en art et en design en Suisse. Un cas d'école: la HEAD - Genève," *Hermès*, La Revue 72, no. 2 (Paris: C.N.R.S. Editions, 2015): 75-84, https://doi.org/10.3917/herm.072.0075, accessed June 5, 2018.
of design and architecture. Philippe Rahm, an architect patiently involved in environmental thinking, presents the case of the construction of an avant-garde system of public services as the conception of gradation of intimacy. He looks at the construction of nine toilets in Taichung's Central Park in Taiwan, which proceeds from a dissociation of layers of protection and perception, each one shifting from outside to inside, creating a concentric circle of boundaries from the most public to the most private that define limits relating to the ground, the light, the sound, taking shelter from the rain, and views. Michael Jakob, professor of history of architecture at HEAD-Ge-nève, analyzes some historical examples of 20th century art and architecture to highlight the ambiguities of toi-lets, considered as social constructions. He describes the processes that relate to what happens on the inside in a dialectical system that regulates the relationship between the inside and the outside, the pure and the impure, in toilet interiors.

In "From Stud to Stalled! Social Equity and Public Restrooms", Joel Sanders, adjunct professor at Yale University, New Haven, traces the evolution of two decades of work on gender, identity, and design since the publication of his book, *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity*. (8) His essay looks at shifting cultural conceptions about masculinity, femininity, and LBGTQ rights over the past 20 years. Sanders presents "Stalled!", a design research project that takes American controversies about transgender access to public restrooms as a departure point to create inclusive public restrooms that meet the needs of people of different ages, genders, religions, and di-

sabilities. Sanders treats the public restroom as a case study: one example of the way designers can make a difference by exploring the design consequences of urgent social justice issues when human rights are in peril in the United States and around the world. Musing on the many meanings and themes associated with the highly intimate and domestic places that are toilets, bathrooms, and restrooms, the famous and multi-award winning filmmakers Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka address the various ways their own work explores and translates physical, and by extension psychological, intimacy into images. Renaud Haerlingen addresses recent toilet-related work by Rotor as well as Rotor Deconstruction's current research, which focuses on up-scaling the refurbishment of re-use toilets. The field reports range from toilets stripped from an office building, a toilet project with a sort of Japanese culture around bathing attitude for a community center, toilets from the decommissioned IOC headquarters, toilets from a luxury residence in Gland, and toilets from the hospital in Prato. Catherine Ince, Chief Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, presents the intriguing history of one of the most extraordinary objects in the V&A's collection: an avant-garde glass bathroom designed in 1932 by the artist Paul Nash, commissioned by surrealist art patron Edward James for his wife Tilly Losch, an Austrian dancer and film star. Her reflection shows how this complex object exemplifies the pursuit of a Gesamtkunstwerk attitude and the progressive spirit of architectural and interior design ideas at play in the thirties, and questions the conservation and exhibition criteria of contemporary museum.
of design and architecture. Philippe Rahm, an architect patiently involved in environmental thinking, presents the case of the construction of an avant-garde system of public services as the conception of gradation of intimacy. He looks at the construction of nine toilets in Taichung's Central Park in Taiwan, which proceeds from a dissociation of layers of protection and perception, each one shifting from outside to inside, creating a concentric circle of boundaries from the most public to the most private that define limits relating to the ground, the light, the sound, taking shelter from the rain, and views. Michael Jakob, professor of history of architecture at HEAD-Ge-nève, analyzes some historical examples of 20th century art and architecture to highlight the ambiguities of toi-lets, considered as social constructions. He describes the processes that relate to what happens on the inside in a dialectical system that regulates the relationship between the inside and the outside, the pure and the impure, in toilet interiors.

In "From Stud to Stalled! Social Equity and Public Restrooms", Joel Sanders, adjunct professor at Yale University, New Haven, traces the evolution of two decades of work on gender, identity, and design since the publication of his book, *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity*. (8) His essay looks at shifting cultural conceptions about masculinity, femininity, and LBGTQ rights over the past 20 years. Sanders presents "Stalled!", a design research project that takes American controversies about transgender access to public restrooms as a departure point to create inclusive public restrooms that meet the needs of people of different ages, genders, religions, and di-

sabilities. Sanders treats the public restroom as a case study: one example of the way designers can make a difference by exploring the design consequences of urgent social justice issues when human rights are in peril in the United States and around the world. Musing on the many meanings and themes associated with the highly intimate and domestic places that are toilets, bathrooms, and restrooms, the famous and multi-award winning filmmakers Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka address the various ways their own work explores and translates physical, and by extension psychological, intimacy into images. Renaud Haerlingen addresses recent toilet-related work by Rotor as well as Rotor Deconstruction's current research, which focuses on up-scaling the refurbishment of re-use toilets. The field reports range from toilets stripped from an office building, a toilet project with a sort of Japanese culture around bathing attitude for a community center, toilets from the decommissioned IOC headquarters, toilets from a luxury residence in Gland, and toilets from the hospital in Prato. Catherine Ince, Chief Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, presents the intriguing history of one of the most extraordinary objects in the V&A's collection: an avant-garde glass bathroom designed in 1932 by the artist Paul Nash, commissioned by surrealist art patron Edward James for his wife Tilly Losch, an Austrian dancer and film star. Her reflection shows how this complex object exemplifies the pursuit of a Gesamtkunstwerk attitude and the progressive spirit of architectural and interior design ideas at play in the thirties, and questions the conservation and exhibition criteria of contemporary museum.
In "Hygiène populaire", Mariana Siracusa, founder and curator of SPAZIO Gallery in Milan, wonders about the way in which toilets can be transformed into subjects to create very appealing exhibitions. The toilet is certainly a successful subject: although it is linked to the naked sexualized body and its associated social conventions, we have all gotten used to peeping into the private lives of others. Curators take advantage of the public's voyeuristic inclinations to stretch the topic, include historically-relevant material, and develop a reflection on contemporary design. Should a possible exhibition actually take place in an architecture gallery in Milan, the curator might start the narrative in the 1970s by showing plans of a "casa a ballatoio" (public housing) and a Gabriele Basilico photograph of a latrine in the same building. This somewhat disturbing yet familiar picture (for the Italian public) would provide a good starting point for the exhibition to show how much things have changed, in architectural and social terms, to get to the white free-standing bathtubs advertised in so many contemporary magazines.

Eva Gil Lopesino, founder of the Elii architecture office in Madrid, Spain, analyzes some of her projects, and their development of the idea that our everyday lives are like a soap opera. Consequently, spaces like toilets and bathrooms have been designed like a transformable stage, enabled for the choreography, rehearsal, action, and fiction of daily life. These spaces are equipped to intensify the performing experience of the users' bodies, to probe and question their social roles and limits, rehearse their shared imagery, test their subjectivity and explore the potential of the ordinary.

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms and Restrooms

Javier Fernandez Contreras and Roberto Zancan

7

In "Dawn the hall to the right? A glimpse into Le Corbusier's bathrooms", Andrés García Pruñonosa, an architect graduate from the Universitat Politècnica de València, conducts an in-depth analysis of the elements of bathrooms in a series of 20th century homes from a transversal perspective on the architectural work of Le Corbusier and other relevant modernist architects, focusing on their spatial impact on the overall layout of the home. He shows how domestic devices, seemingly restricted to their functional scope, are actually crucial in the organization of the domestic layout.

In the context of society's incipient comprehension of hygienic objectives as a necessity, the bathroom not only emerged as a space for experimentation, but probably also appears as the main contribution to the domestic program of the avant-garde. In addition to these texts, the main contributions to the seminar, this book adds a couple of others essays written for the *Spot on. Toiletten-geschichten* exhibition at the Kulturzentrum Alte Fabrik, Gebert Stiftung für Kultur Foundation in Rapperswil, from 24 August to 13 October 2019. Although this event was completely independent of the seminar, the connection between the two events is instrumental and not accidental. The small extraordinary exhibition curated by Josiane Imhasly is probably the most interesting recent interpretation of contemporary artistic production around the theme of toilets, as confirmed by her essays. So somehow, precisely due to the fact that initially there was no relationship between the two events, this has been an indirect confirmation of the interest in the research theme, further confirmed when the curator asked HEAD - Genève
In "Hygiène populaire", Mariana Siracusa, founder and
curator of SPAZIO Gallery in Milan, wonders about the
way in which toilets can be transformed into subjects to
create very appealing exhibitions. The toilet is certainly
a successful subject: although it is linked to the naked
sexualized body and its associated social conventions, we
have all gotten used to peeping into the private lives of
others. Curators take advantage of the public's voyeuristic
inclinations to stretch the topic, include historically-rele-
vant material, and develop a reflection on contemporary
design. Should a possible exhibition actually take pla-
ce in an architecture gallery in Milan, the curator might
start the narrative in the 1970s by showing plans of a
"casa a ballatoio" (public housing) and a Gabriele Basilico
photograph of a latrine in the same building. This somewhat disturbing yet familiar picture (for the Italian public)
would provide a good starting point for the exhibition to
show how much things have changed, in architectural and
social terms, to get to the white free-standing bathtubs
advertised in so many contemporary magazines.

Eva Gil Lopesino, founder of the Elii architecture office in Madrid, Spain, analyzes some of her projects, and their development of the idea that our everyday lives are like a soap opera. Consequently, spaces like toilets and bathrooms have been designed like a transformable stage, enabled for the choreography, rehearsal, action, and fiction of daily life. These spaces are equipped to intensify the performing experience of the users' bodies, to probe and question their social roles and limits, rehearse their shared imagery, test their subjectivity and explore the potential of the ordinary.

INTIMACY EXPOSED An Introduction to the Study of Toilets, Bathrooms and Restrooms

Javier Fernandez Contreras and Roberto Zancan

7

In "Dawn the hall to the right? A glimpse into Le Corbusier's bathrooms", Andrés García Pruñonosa, an architect graduate from the Universitat Politècnica de València, conducts an in-depth analysis of the elements of bathrooms in a series of 20th century homes from a transversal perspective on the architectural work of Le Corbusier and other relevant modernist architects, focusing on their spatial impact on the overall layout of the home. He shows how domestic devices, seemingly restricted to their functional scope, are actually crucial in the organization of the domestic layout.

In the context of society's incipient comprehension of
hygienic objectives as a necessity, the bathroom not only
emerged as a space for experimentation, but probably
also appears as the main contribution to the domestic
program of the avant-garde. In addition to these texts,
the main contributions to the seminar, this book adds a
couple of others essays written for the *Spot on. Toiletten-
geschichten* exhibition at the Kulturzentrum Alte Fabrik,
*Gebert Stiftung für Kultur* Foundation in Rapperswil, from
24 August to 13 October 2019. Although this event was
completely independent of the seminar, the connection
between the two events is instrumental and not acci-
dental. The small extraordinary exhibition curated by
Josiane Imhasly is probably the most interesting recent
interpretation of contemporary artistic production around
the theme of toilets, as confirmed by her essays. So so-
mehow, precisely due to the fact that initially there was
no relationship between the two events, this has been an
indirect confirmation of the interest in the research theme,
further confirmed when the curator asked HEAD - Genève
to participate in the exhibition with a new specific installation. It is this experience that the practice-based approach of the seminar has expressed its full potential. The *Stoned in the Bathroom* installation, presented here in essay form, is inspired by a laboratory product of the bachelor of interior architecture course during the Spring semester of 2019, entirely dedicated to the theoretical and scientific issues raised by the “Intimacy Exposed” seminar. It confirms not only the value of the approach but also the fertility of a research field that is only just beginning.

The buildings, environments, and artistic expressions presented in this volume highlight the rich past of domestic technology and the ambiguous future of personal and collective practices in the dense ream of toilets. Partial and fragmentary tales of an ideal, semantic, physical space about which much remains to be told. From this perspective, this book presents a beginning. Its authors are aware that there are more absences than presences and there are many issues which, within the permitted time and space limits, it has not been possible to cover. One of them is our interest in the production of more precise, appropriate and far-sighted knowledge in the design of sanitary facilities and "wet areas". We must bear in mind that social problems linked to public and private health are largely yet to be addressed in developing countries, i.e., precisely where these issues are most pressing and many projects are underway. The exploration of past and contemporary habits in the use of sanitary spaces and body care is limited to a very few cases that can only shed limited light on the galaxies of

interiors, furniture, objects, and constructions provided by toilets, bathrooms and restrooms. Our hope is that this volume, and all that is not in it, provides inspiration for readers to study these galaxies and draw new stimulating, *bathiful* constellations in them.
to participate in the exhibition with a new specific installation. It is this experience that the practice-based approach of the seminar has expressed its full potential. The *Stoned in the Bathroom* installation, presented here in essay form, is inspired by a laboratory product of the bachelor of interior architecture course during the Spring semester of 2019, entirely dedicated to the theoretical and scientific issues raised by the “Intimacy Exposed” seminar. It confirms not only the value of the approach but also the fertility of a research field that is only just beginning.

The buildings, environments, and artistic expressions presented in this volume highlight the rich past of domestic technology and the ambiguous future of personal and collective practices in the dense ream of toilets. Partial and fragmentary tales of an ideal, semantic, physical space about which much remains to be told. From this perspective, this book presents a beginning. Its authors are aware that there are more absences than presences and there are many issues which, within the permitted time and space limits, it has not been possible to cover. One of them is our interest in the production of more precise, appropriate and far-sighted knowledge in the design of sanitary facilities and "wet areas". We must bear in mind that social problems linked to public and private health are largely yet to be addressed in developing countries, i.e., precisely where these issues are most pressing and many projects are underway. The exploration of past and contemporary habits in the use of sanitary spaces and body care is limited to a very few cases that can only shed limited light on the galaxies of

interiors, furniture, objects, and constructions provided by toilets, bathrooms and restrooms. Our hope is that this volume, and all that is not in it, provides inspiration for readers to study these galaxies and draw new stimulating, *bathiful* constellations in them.
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

MODERN PLUMBING

Alexandra Midal

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

"The bathroom is part of our brain, contributing to the unique growth of the individual mind."
—Richard Buckminster Fuller (9)

The two visuals chosen to communicate the symposium that brought us together, "Intimacy Exposed. Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom", raised questions. The call for projects was launched with a photograph showing two series of urinals placed on either side of a room with yellow walls and a black and white checkered floor. Instead of signifying the necessary diversity of toilets, the choice fell on the urinal, an symbolically male device, as if it were the synecdoche of the toilet and by extension, the bathroom. This presupposition betrays the masculine predominance that governs the production of spaces, and toilets as well.

Secondly, a photograph was circulated to announce the symposium, and what did it show? Two young women, students from the Interior Architecture Department, dressed in swimming costumes, facing the lens. As a preamble, I asked myself how and why these two students posed in this outfit for a photographer. And then I wondered about what this political and aesthetic choice was meant to state. Finally, I tried to understand what relationship this cliché had with the issue of intimacy and toilets. Might it be the feminine counterpart to the previous image, showing two rows of five urinals? How might we analyze this scopophilic scene? A scene in which two young female students, backs to the wall, as in mugshots taken by the police, are reified. They look like objects of contemplation in a scene that highlights
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

MODERN PLUMBING

Alexandra Midal

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

"The bathroom is part of our brain, contributing to the unique growth of the individual mind."
—Richard Buckminster Fuller (9)

The two visuals chosen to communicate the symposium that brought us together, "Intimacy Exposed. Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom", raised questions. The call for projects was launched with a photograph showing two series of urinals placed on either side of a room with yellow walls and a black and white checkered floor. Instead of signifying the necessary diversity of toilets, the choice fell on the urinal, an symbolically male device, as if it were the synecdoche of the toilet and by extension, the bathroom. This presupposition betrays the masculine predominance that governs the production of spaces, and toilets as well.

Secondly, a photograph was circulated to announce the symposium, and what did it show? Two young women, students from the Interior Architecture Department, dressed in swimming costumes, facing the lens. As a preamble, I asked myself how and why these two students posed in this outfit for a photographer. And then I wondered about what this political and aesthetic choice was meant to state. Finally, I tried to understand what relationship this cliché had with the issue of intimacy and toilets.

Might it be the feminine counterpart to the previous image, showing two rows of five urinals? How might we analyze this scopophilic scene? A scene in which two young female students, backs to the wall, as in mugshots taken by the police, are reified. They look like objects of contemplation in a scene that highlights
10 Laura Mulvey, "The Spectacle is Vulnerable: Miss World, 1970," in *Visual and Other Pleasures* (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 3–5.
11 In the domestic space, this split responds to the idea of the feminine as "angelic," praised by poets such as Coventry Patmore in *The Angel in the House* (London: John W. Parker and Sox, West Strand: 1854) and repeated in specialist work on the education of young women or "Angels in the house" as John Ruskin calls them, benevolent wives who must pool their efforts to create an emotionally and psychologically serene environment for their exhausted husbands. In England at the end of the 19th century, the founding fathers of design gave women a mission: to build a shelter to protect their husbands from the tribulations and evils to which the modern city subjected them.
12 In *Privacy and Publicity* (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), Beatriz Colomina combines these two mass media images of the bidet and the urinal, placing one above the other. See also: Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, "Toilet Architecture: An Essay about the Most Psychosexually Charged Room in a Building," *Pin-Up Magazine* no. 23. 13 *Fountain* went from product to work of art with the addition of the signature "R. Mutt" on the front left, above the handwritten year "1917." The year did not

the contemporaneity of the thesis outlined in the seminal analysis by Laura Mulvey and Margarita Jimenez almost fifty years ago (10). Aren't we once again confronted with the concept of the "paradox of phallocentrism", sometimes subconscious, made famous by Mulvey in her seminal essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"? Clearly, by questioning the choices underlying the way "Intimacy Exposed. Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom" was communicated, our introduction may seem controversial, but that is not our intention. It aims to demonstrate, if need be, that the issue that brings us together today is political, and that it is essential for us to examine it. Choosing pictures of urinals and scantily clad young women raises questions about the prevalence of unchallenged masculinity and the decorative status in which women are circumscribed, regarded as the decorative elements of intimacy (11). With *Modern Plumbing*, our aim is to relate, through the narrow lens of plumbing, certain scattered events steeped in an ever-present form of androcentrism. This seems to refer to Marcel Duchamp's urinal which he bought in a shop, and the bidet that Le Corbusier took from an industrial sanitaryware catalog. (12) The architect chose a photograph of a violin-shaped bidet by Maison Pirsoul and published it in *L'Esprit Nouveau* in 1923–1924, six years after Duchamp sent *Fountain*, a white eart-henware urinal produced by J. L. Mott Iron Works, to the Society of Independent Artists' exhibition in 1917 (13). Alongside the urinal that "furnishes the public domain" (14)

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal</figcaption></figure>

and collects urine, the bidet furnishes the home and cleans secretions. Urinals, bidets and toilets fall within the scope of "pipework" both literally and figuratively. They are part of the vast project of "domestic Taylorism" (15) driven by women proto-designers who worked towards the invention of a rational organization of the home, and the history of design and architecture.

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

## The virtues of waste

Paulette Bernège, director of the Mon Chez Moi publishing house and President of the League for Household Effificiency, tracked down examples of seemingly mundane work done by women in the domestic sphere such as "saboteur stairways", "'tiring' materials" and above all "vampire distances." These, however, suck up the energy spent by the housewives' untimely comings and goings: "I call these poorly studied distances that drain human forces 'vampires'." (16) In so doing, Bernège pleaded for a civilization of pipework that linked chimneys to the human body and radiators to waste water. She enveloped her statements with drawings interspersed through her essay entitled, *Si les femmes faisaient les maisons* (If Women Made Houses, 1928). Her way with words echoed the ones finely crafted by her model, American professor of household science and contributor to the *The Designer* magazine between 1920 and 1929, Christine Isobel Frederick. Bernège made

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

indicate the year of the urinal's production but rather, its deliberate artistic appropriation and display at an art event. It also owed this new status to Alfred Stieglitz's photography. Indeed, *Fountain* was not displayed at the American Society of Independent Artists: it was supposedly misplaced behind a partition for the duration of the event. It then met its destiny in the construction of its fantastically modern, mass-media legend thanks to Stieglitz's photograph, which was first published in *The Blind Man*, the avant-garde magazine co-edited by Duchamp, where it appeared in front of a plant signed with the photographer's name. For his part, Le Corbusier took the Picoul violin-shaped bidet and published it. The public discovered it in the pages of his magazine, *L'Esprit Nouveau*, then in the pages of *L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui* in 1925, where it served as an opening for the chapter entitled "Autres Icônes Les Musées". For Le Corbusier, its presence justified the condemnation of the arbitrariness that he accused museums of and dismissed in favor of "real" museums, which, he said, were exhaustive, brought together all the objects of life and erased all separation between art and everyday life.
14 Fanny Beaupré and Roger-Henri Guerrand, *Le Confident des dames. Le bidet du XVIIe au XXe siècle : histoire d'une intimité* (Paris: La Découverte, 1997), 124.
15 Paulette Bernège, *Si les femmes faisaient les maisons* (Paris: Mon Chez Moi, 1928).
16 Bernège, *Si les femmes*, 13.
10 Laura Mulvey, "The Spectacle is Vulnerable: Miss World, 1970," in *Visual and Other Pleasures* (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 3–5.
11 In the domestic space, this split responds to the idea of the feminine as "angelic," praised by poets such as Coventry Patmore in *The Angel in the House* (London: John W. Parker and Sox, West Strand: 1854) and repeated in specialist work on the education of young women or "Angels in the house" as John Ruskin calls them, benevolent wives who must pool their efforts to create an emotionally and psychologically serene environment for their exhausted husbands. In England at the end of the 19th century, the founding fathers of design gave women a mission: to build a shelter to protect their husbands from the tribulations and evils to which the modern city subjected them.
12 In *Privacy and Publicity* (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), Beatriz Colomina combines these two mass media images of the bidet and the urinal, placing one above the other. See also: Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, "Toilet Architecture: An Essay about the Most Psychosexually Charged Room in a Building," *Pin-Up Magazine* no. 23. 13 *Fountain* went from product to work of art with the addition of the signature "R. Mutt" on the front left, above the handwritten year "1917." The year did not

the contemporaneity of the thesis outlined in the seminal analysis by Laura Mulvey and Margarita Jimenez almost fifty years ago (10). Aren't we once again confronted with the concept of the "paradox of phallocentrism", sometimes subconscious, made famous by Mulvey in her seminal essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"? Clearly, by questioning the choices underlying the way "Intimacy Exposed. Toilet, Bathroom, Restroom" was communicated, our introduction may seem controversial, but that is not our intention. It aims to demonstrate, if need be, that the issue that brings us together today is political, and that it is essential for us to examine it. Choosing pictures of urinals and scantily clad young women raises questions about the prevalence of unchallenged masculinity and the decorative status in which women are circumscribed, regarded as the decorative elements of intimacy (11). With *Modern Plumbing*, our aim is to relate, through the narrow lens of plumbing, certain scattered events steeped in an ever-present form of androcentrism. This seems to refer to Marcel Duchamp's urinal which he bought in a shop, and the bidet that Le Corbusier took from an industrial sanitaryware catalog. (12) The architect chose a photograph of a violin-shaped bidet by Maison Pirsoul and published it in *L'Esprit Nouveau* in 1923–1924, six years after Duchamp sent *Fountain*, a white eart-henware urinal produced by J. L. Mott Iron Works, to the Society of Independent Artists' exhibition in 1917 (13). Alongside the urinal that "furnishes the public domain" (14)

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal</figcaption></figure>

and collects urine, the bidet furnishes the home and cleans secretions. Urinals, bidets and toilets fall within the scope of "pipework" both literally and figuratively. They are part of the vast project of "domestic Taylorism" (15) driven by women proto-designers who worked towards the invention of a rational organization of the home, and the history of design and architecture.

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

## The virtues of waste

Paulette Bernège, director of the Mon Chez Moi publishing house and President of the League for Household Effificiency, tracked down examples of seemingly mundane work done by women in the domestic sphere such as "saboteur stairways", "'tiring' materials" and above all "vampire distances." These, however, suck up the energy spent by the housewives' untimely comings and goings: "I call these poorly studied distances that drain human forces 'vampires'." (16) In so doing, Bernège pleaded for a civilization of pipework that linked chimneys to the human body and radiators to waste water. She enveloped her statements with drawings interspersed through her essay entitled, *Si les femmes faisaient les maisons* (If Women Made Houses, 1928). Her way with words echoed the ones finely crafted by her model, American professor of household science and contributor to the *The Designer* magazine between 1920 and 1929, Christine Isobel Frederick. Bernège made

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

indicate the year of the urinal's production but rather, its deliberate artistic appropriation and display at an art event. It also owed this new status to Alfred Stieglitz's photography. Indeed, *Fountain* was not displayed at the American Society of Independent Artists: it was supposedly misplaced behind a partition for the duration of the event. It then met its destiny in the construction of its fantastically modern, mass-media legend thanks to Stieglitz's photograph, which was first published in *The Blind Man*, the avant-garde magazine co-edited by Duchamp, where it appeared in front of a plant signed with the photographer's name. For his part, Le Corbusier took the Picoul violin-shaped bidet and published it. The public discovered it in the pages of his magazine, *L'Esprit Nouveau*, then in the pages of *L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui* in 1925, where it served as an opening for the chapter entitled "Autres Icônes Les Musées". For Le Corbusier, its presence justified the condemnation of the arbitrariness that he accused museums of and dismissed in favor of "real" museums, which, he said, were exhaustive, brought together all the objects of life and erased all separation between art and everyday life.
14 Fanny Beaupré and Roger-Henri Guerrand, *Le Confident des dames. Le bidet du XVIIe au XXe siècle : histoire d'une intimité* (Paris: La Découverte, 1997), 124.
15 Paulette Bernège, *Si les femmes faisaient les maisons* (Paris: Mon Chez Moi, 1928).
16 Bernège, *Si les femmes*, 13.
her work known in France as early as 1915, and Frederick found her alter ego in Bernège, the European pioneer in the teaching of "modern scientific household management" (17) and the science of domesticity for women. The celebration of this domestic and scientific concept gained momentum and echoed a timid recognition of the importance of women in American society, (18) while it remained almost non-existent in Europe.

A theorist of domestic life, Frederick coined the concept of “creative loss”, an economic notion according to which consumption, the driving force of the nation, must favor waste and loss. By following a transformation circuit similar to organic digestion, the economy reproduces the circulation of food ingested by the human body until it is excreted. With this notion, Frederick asserted the importance of the body. Initially published by the Butterick Publishing Company and in *The Ladies' Home Journal*, "creative loss" emerged as the capitalist and consumerist expression of the rational organization of the body and the household as applied to the economy and society. This notion was seen as a progressive act that developed, according to the late 1990s analysis by Ellen Lupton and Jack Abbott Miller in *The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste: A Process of Elimination* (19) into an ethos of the disposable. The oxymoron "creative loss" highlighted the redeeming role and culture of waste, and propelled it into the highest spheres of morality. The importance of this analogy between body and society, in order to function well, was a focus on destruction which would ensure a kind of renewal. Above all, Lupton and Miller showed how rationalization was the product of the dual obsession of modern America, fascinated by the avalanche of new products and a

plethora of diets that promised to reshape your body to your liking. This is one reason why American consumers euphorically celebrated the principles of planned obsolescence, which served the idea of an economy engaged in a cycle where goods are continually ingested, digested and expelled, only to be absorbed again, all under the guise of an aesthetics of fluidity where the digestive system, nature and culture, home and the economy merge. A similar apology for fluidity was advocated by all the designers of the Streamline movement. This was the first modern American design movement, one of whose most important figures, Norman Bel Geddes, illustrated its benefits in his designs, as in *Magic Motorways* (1940), (20) a book that looked at the country's highways.

## Eugenics in the bathroom

To illustrate their hypothesis, Lupton and Miller focused on the importance of modern plumbing in circulating city water and wastewater, and the mobility of toilets and pots, the original portable objects that gradually became fixed (21) and spatialized in the household. This ground-level installation gave rise to the functionalization of a place then assigned to ablutions and body care. From objects, these items of furniture became industrial enameled porcelain equipment for the modern bathroom. Their

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2.5. Illustration accompanying Allene Talmey, "A World We'll Never See," Vogue (1 Feb. 1939): 90. Constantin Aladjalov/Vogue © Condé Nast Publications Inc.</figcaption></figure>
her work known in France as early as 1915, and Frederick found her alter ego in Bernège, the European pioneer in the teaching of "modern scientific household management" (17) and the science of domesticity for women. The celebration of this domestic and scientific concept gained momentum and echoed a timid recognition of the importance of women in American society, (18) while it remained almost non-existent in Europe.

A theorist of domestic life, Frederick coined the concept of “creative loss”, an economic notion according to which consumption, the driving force of the nation, must favor waste and loss. By following a transformation circuit similar to organic digestion, the economy reproduces the circulation of food ingested by the human body until it is excreted. With this notion, Frederick asserted the importance of the body. Initially published by the Butterick Publishing Company and in *The Ladies' Home Journal*, "creative loss" emerged as the capitalist and consumerist expression of the rational organization of the body and the household as applied to the economy and society. This notion was seen as a progressive act that developed, according to the late 1990s analysis by Ellen Lupton and Jack Abbott Miller in *The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste: A Process of Elimination* (19) into an ethos of the disposable. The oxymoron "creative loss" highlighted the redeeming role and culture of waste, and propelled it into the highest spheres of morality. The importance of this analogy between body and society, in order to function well, was a focus on destruction which would ensure a kind of renewal. Above all, Lupton and Miller showed how rationalization was the product of the dual obsession of modern America, fascinated by the avalanche of new products and a

plethora of diets that promised to reshape your body to your liking. This is one reason why American consumers euphorically celebrated the principles of planned obsolescence, which served the idea of an economy engaged in a cycle where goods are continually ingested, digested and expelled, only to be absorbed again, all under the guise of an aesthetics of fluidity where the digestive system, nature and culture, home and the economy merge. A similar apology for fluidity was advocated by all the designers of the Streamline movement. This was the first modern American design movement, one of whose most important figures, Norman Bel Geddes, illustrated its benefits in his designs, as in *Magic Motorways* (1940), (20) a book that looked at the country's highways.

## Eugenics in the bathroom

To illustrate their hypothesis, Lupton and Miller focused on the importance of modern plumbing in circulating city water and wastewater, and the mobility of toilets and pots, the original portable objects that gradually became fixed (21) and spatialized in the household. This ground-level installation gave rise to the functionalization of a place then assigned to ablutions and body care. From objects, these items of furniture became industrial enameled porcelain equipment for the modern bathroom. Their

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2.5. Illustration accompanying Allene Talmey, "A World We'll Never See," Vogue (1 Feb. 1939): 90. Constantin Aladjalov/Vogue © Condé Nast Publications Inc.</figcaption></figure>
22 Le Corbusier evokes the need to create a "Law of Ripolin", to ensure that all interiors are painted white to target any form of dirt or darkness. *L'Art decoratif d'aujourd'hui* (Paris: Editions Crès, 1925), 192. Ripolin is the brand name of the hard impermeable and washable enamel "sanitary paint" invented at the end of the nineteenth century, promoted for its anti-bacterial properties, and favored by hospitals. 23 Christina Cogdell, *Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 24 In 1939, Geddes was not the only industrial designer to promote eugenics, the body and design. *Vogue* magazine invited eight all-male industrial designers, Russel Wright, Walter Dorwin Teague, Donald Deskey, Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Egmont Arens, Joseph B. Platt and George Sakier, to design the garment for the "Woman of the Future" as part of its special issue devoted to the New York International Exhibition, whose theme, *The World of Tomorrow*, explored future scenarios. The Loewy-designed dress appeared on the magazine cover, worn by a woman whose body in profile was facing the future. Although focused primarily

easily washable white surface was meant to reflect the simple, pure and hygienic white order and other Laws of Ripolin that appeared at the turn of the 20th century. (22) As Cristina Cogdell pointed out in *Eugenic Design* (23), the intertwining of Bel Geddes and eugenics forged an association where excess flirted with an ideology that merged with Streamline and also found defenders in Henry Dreyfuss and Raymond Loewy, who claimed its moral expression and hoped to select objects as well as bodies, thus transforming them according to their aerodynamic industrial design with pure, streamlined lines in order to save society. Reflecting their functionalist obsession, the Streamline designers thought they were working to improve the human race. Moving in this way from the body to comfort to the organization of the household demonstrated the disruptions that sometimes accompanied the rise of progress and its ideological objectives, which were often nauseating in terms of scientific performance. (24)

As this concept spread to the interior and to the bathroom, constituting both its pa-
radigm and its demonstration, the Modern movement established a regime of cleanli-
ness that was meant to reflect the ideal of fluidity of continuous production applied in
assembly lines in factories. For Lupton and Miller again, these standards of personal
and household hygiene, from the kitchen to the bathroom, accompanied health and
hygienic reforms and exceeded the requirements of architectural rationalism: "The

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal</figcaption></figure>

functional 'need' for clean bodies and clean
houses has fed the culture of consumption,
by mapping out the human and architectu-
ral body as a marketplace for an endlessly
regenerating inventory of products". (25)
Addressing the popularity of the discourse
on the virtue of the body's fluidity, Cogdell
illustrated her point with a reproduction of
X-ray photographs showing the breakfast
itinerary according to John Harvey Kellogg
in 1918. She also presented a 1937 adver-
tisement for Petrolagar laxatives extolling

the benefits of an ideal intestinal transit where excrement, much like in a train arri-
ving at the station at the exact time, circulated according to a precise timetable, in a
punctuality amplified by a sketched hand holding a stopwatch at the bottom left of the
advertisement. She analyzed programmatic drawings such as *Postures in Evacuation*;
*Exercises for Women* from Hornibrook's book (26) in Bel Geddes' library. These dra-
wings recommended and indicated the correct posture to adopt for defecation. Only
women were depicted, as if they were the only ones who could relieve themselves of
the risks of "abdominal stagnation", while men were not concerned with these issues,
busy as they were designing that selfsame toilet. This was the case of Henry Dreyfuss,

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4.5. Norman Bel Geddes's copy of Etie A. Hornibrook's *Restoration Exercises for Women* (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 54-55. In NBG Papers. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and the Estate of Edith Lutynes Bel Geddes.</figcaption></figure>

on her clothes and accessories, the Streamline designers did not hesitate to comment on the physique of the woman of the future, predicting a
perfect body and mind, according to their bias in favor of masculine symbols, through the application of triumphant eugenics applied to everything
and everyone. See Christina Cogdell, "Products or Bodies? Streamline Design and Eugenics as Applied Biology," *Design Issues* 19, no. 1, 2003, 36-53,
translated into French in Alexandra Midal, *Design, l'anthologie* (Geneva: HEAD - Genève, 2013): "For example, Deskey proclaimed, 'Medicine will have
given her a perfect body. She will never experience obesity, skinliness, head colds, excess hair or a bad complexion thanks to a proven diet and a
controlled basal metabolic rate. Her size will be increased and her eyelashes lengthened, with a little hormone X'. Because of her beautiful body, she
will no longer need to wear underwear, he thought, and after a period of nudism, she will likely dress in semi-transparent fabrics, similar to togas.
Teague's idea revealed that he also believed that most women would have 'beautiful bodies and that the current trend towards nudity would continue
apace'. Sakier, for his part, said that, 'The woman of the future will be tall, thin and beautiful; she will be brought up for that, for the pleasure of the
community and her own happiness... Her point of view will be clear and direct. She will be free of all kinds of complexes and inhibitions'." 25 Lupton,
*The Bathroom*, 9. 26 Etie A. Hornibrook, *Restoration Exercises for Women* (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 54-55.
22 Le Corbusier evokes the need to create a "Law of Ripolin", to ensure that all interiors are painted white to target any form of dirt or darkness. *L'Art decoratif d'aujourd'hui* (Paris: Editions Crès, 1925), 192. Ripolin is the brand name of the hard impermeable and washable enamel "sanitary paint" invented at the end of the nineteenth century, promoted for its anti-bacterial properties, and favored by hospitals. 23 Christina Cogdell, *Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 24 In 1939, Geddes was not the only industrial designer to promote eugenics, the body and design. *Vogue* magazine invited eight all-male industrial designers, Russel Wright, Walter Dorwin Teague, Donald Deskey, Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Egmont Arens, Joseph B. Platt and George Sakier, to design the garment for the "Woman of the Future" as part of its special issue devoted to the New York International Exhibition, whose theme, *The World of Tomorrow*, explored future scenarios. The Loewy-designed dress appeared on the magazine cover, worn by a woman whose body in profile was facing the future. Although focused primarily

easily washable white surface was meant to reflect the simple, pure and hygienic white order and other Laws of Ripolin that appeared at the turn of the 20th century. (22) As Cristina Cogdell pointed out in *Eugenic Design* (23), the intertwining of Bel Geddes and eugenics forged an association where excess flirted with an ideology that merged with Streamline and also found defenders in Henry Dreyfuss and Raymond Loewy, who claimed its moral expression and hoped to select objects as well as bodies, thus transforming them according to their aerodynamic industrial design with pure, streamlined lines in order to save society. Reflecting their functionalist obsession, the Streamline designers thought they were working to improve the human race. Moving in this way from the body to comfort to the organization of the household demonstrated the disruptions that sometimes accompanied the rise of progress and its ideological objectives, which were often nauseating in terms of scientific performance. (24)

As this concept spread to the interior and to the bathroom, constituting both its pa-
radigm and its demonstration, the Modern movement established a regime of cleanli-
ness that was meant to reflect the ideal of fluidity of continuous production applied in
assembly lines in factories. For Lupton and Miller again, these standards of personal
and household hygiene, from the kitchen to the bathroom, accompanied health and
hygienic reforms and exceeded the requirements of architectural rationalism: "The

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal</figcaption></figure>

functional 'need' for clean bodies and clean
houses has fed the culture of consumption,
by mapping out the human and architectu-
ral body as a marketplace for an endlessly
regenerating inventory of products". (25)
Addressing the popularity of the discourse
on the virtue of the body's fluidity, Cogdell
illustrated her point with a reproduction of
X-ray photographs showing the breakfast
itinerary according to John Harvey Kellogg
in 1918. She also presented a 1937 adver-
tisement for Petrolagar laxatives extolling

the benefits of an ideal intestinal transit where excrement, much like in a train arri-
ving at the station at the exact time, circulated according to a precise timetable, in a
punctuality amplified by a sketched hand holding a stopwatch at the bottom left of the
advertisement. She analyzed programmatic drawings such as *Postures in Evacuation*;
*Exercises for Women* from Hornibrook's book (26) in Bel Geddes' library. These dra-
wings recommended and indicated the correct posture to adopt for defecation. Only
women were depicted, as if they were the only ones who could relieve themselves of
the risks of "abdominal stagnation", while men were not concerned with these issues,
busy as they were designing that selfsame toilet. This was the case of Henry Dreyfuss,

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4.5. Norman Bel Geddes's copy of Etie A. Hornibrook's *Restoration Exercises for Women* (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 54-55. In NBG Papers. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and the Estate of Edith Lutynes Bel Geddes.</figcaption></figure>

on her clothes and accessories, the Streamline designers did not hesitate to comment on the physique of the woman of the future, predicting a
perfect body and mind, according to their bias in favor of masculine symbols, through the application of triumphant eugenics applied to everything
and everyone. See Christina Cogdell, "Products or Bodies? Streamline Design and Eugenics as Applied Biology," *Design Issues* 19, no. 1, 2003, 36-53,
translated into French in Alexandra Midal, *Design, l'anthologie* (Geneva: HEAD - Genève, 2013): "For example, Deskey proclaimed, 'Medicine will have
given her a perfect body. She will never experience obesity, skinliness, head colds, excess hair or a bad complexion thanks to a proven diet and a
controlled basal metabolic rate. Her size will be increased and her eyelashes lengthened, with a little hormone X'. Because of her beautiful body, she
will no longer need to wear underwear, he thought, and after a period of nudism, she will likely dress in semi-transparent fabrics, similar to togas.
Teague's idea revealed that he also believed that most women would have 'beautiful bodies and that the current trend towards nudity would continue
apace'. Sakier, for his part, said that, 'The woman of the future will be tall, thin and beautiful; she will be brought up for that, for the pleasure of the
community and her own happiness... Her point of view will be clear and direct. She will be free of all kinds of complexes and inhibitions'." 25 Lupton,
*The Bathroom*, 9. 26 Etie A. Hornibrook, *Restoration Exercises for Women* (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 54-55.
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

for example, who imagined the *Criterion Closet* in the thirties: a low,
violin-shaped toilet designed for Crane Co. Its unorthodox design was
supposed to facilitate expulsion by relying on the springs of primitivism,
according to which, modernity has distanced us from calls of nature.
The itinerary of food responded to a healthy colon, its fluid transpor-
tation, that jewel in the crown of the automotive civilization and the
liberal American economy. The latter was seen from an ergonomic and
aerodynamic perspective as a territory to be colonized: "The consu-
merist body ingests and expels not only food—the prototypical object
of consumption—but the full range of images and objects that pass
through the cycle of manufacture, purchase and disposal. In this *process
of elimination*, the body itself is remade." (27) And of course, such an
allegory of good digestion focused on the richness of production and loss, between
ingestion and excretion, and the economy, design and health referred to the toilet
and the pleasure of the anal stage: "[...] 20th century design gradually articulated
the bathroom and kitchen as the erotogenic zones of the domestic body." (28) Lupton
and Miller's analysis also oscillated in the same proportions between desire, loss and
sexualization: "As sexual pleasure is sustained by the utilitarian processes of diges-
tion, the restless desire for new commodities built on fetishized routines consolidates
biological consumption". (29)

Confident and confessor

Aside from their notoriously industrial character, the interest shown by Le Corbusier and Duchamp in sanitary facilities revealed the importance of the new "white order" of the 1930s, and a relationship with bodily waste that had become a subject in itself and could sometimes even be elevated to the status of a work of art. The bidet, however, belonged as much to hygienic and medical conveniences as it did to libertinism and lust. After having been straddled equally by men and women, its use changed after the demise of the old regime in France. The urinal and the *vespasienne* reserved for male urination were considered to be an instrument of popular and urban hygiene which "furnished the public domain", while the bidet, associated with cleanliness, was gradually considered to be an effeminate device whose use would be exclusively feminine.

The first mention of the bidet, according to the analysis of Fanny Beaupré and Roger-Henri Guerrand (30), reminds us how difficult it is to determine its etymological origin with certainty. It “[...] could potentially come from ‘baudet’” (31) in one of these distorted linguistic mysteries that made it into a toilet object under Louis XIV back in 1739. It appeared on the calling card of master turner Rémy Pèverie, a cabinetmaker who offered “bidets with back and flap” and “double bidets that can be used by two people at the same time”. (32) Beaupré and Guerrand noticed an amusing piece of information: the editor of the *Almanach des honnêtes femmes* reportedly proposed a
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

for example, who imagined the *Criterion Closet* in the thirties: a low,
violin-shaped toilet designed for Crane Co. Its unorthodox design was
supposed to facilitate expulsion by relying on the springs of primitivism,
according to which, modernity has distanced us from calls of nature.
The itinerary of food responded to a healthy colon, its fluid transpor-
tation, that jewel in the crown of the automotive civilization and the
liberal American economy. The latter was seen from an ergonomic and
aerodynamic perspective as a territory to be colonized: "The consu-
merist body ingests and expels not only food—the prototypical object
of consumption—but the full range of images and objects that pass
through the cycle of manufacture, purchase and disposal. In this *process
of elimination*, the body itself is remade." (27) And of course, such an
allegory of good digestion focused on the richness of production and loss, between
ingestion and excretion, and the economy, design and health referred to the toilet
and the pleasure of the anal stage: "[...] 20th century design gradually articulated
the bathroom and kitchen as the erotogenic zones of the domestic body." (28) Lupton
and Miller's analysis also oscillated in the same proportions between desire, loss and
sexualization: "As sexual pleasure is sustained by the utilitarian processes of diges-
tion, the restless desire for new commodities built on fetishized routines consolidates
biological consumption". (29)

Confident and confessor

Aside from their notoriously industrial character, the interest shown by Le Corbusier and Duchamp in sanitary facilities revealed the importance of the new "white order" of the 1930s, and a relationship with bodily waste that had become a subject in itself and could sometimes even be elevated to the status of a work of art. The bidet, however, belonged as much to hygienic and medical conveniences as it did to libertinism and lust. After having been straddled equally by men and women, its use changed after the demise of the old regime in France. The urinal and the *vespasienne* reserved for male urination were considered to be an instrument of popular and urban hygiene which "furnished the public domain", while the bidet, associated with cleanliness, was gradually considered to be an effeminate device whose use would be exclusively feminine.

The first mention of the bidet, according to the analysis of Fanny Beaupré and Roger-Henri Guerrand (30), reminds us how difficult it is to determine its etymological origin with certainty. It “[...] could potentially come from ‘baudet’” (31) in one of these distorted linguistic mysteries that made it into a toilet object under Louis XIV back in 1739. It appeared on the calling card of master turner Rémy Pèverie, a cabinetmaker who offered “bidets with back and flap” and “double bidets that can be used by two people at the same time”. (32) Beaupré and Guerrand noticed an amusing piece of information: the editor of the *Almanach des honnêtes femmes* reportedly proposed a
33 Sylvain Maréchal, *L'Almanach des honnêtes femmes pour l'année 1790* (Bruxelles: de l'Imprinerie de la Société Joyeuse, ca. 1870), 11, mentioned in Beaupré, *Le Confident*, 20. 34 In this context, it might be a valuable circumvolution to note that Koolhaas's *Delirious New York* is steeped in sexual symbolism that runs through his 1995 opus S, M, L, XL, with delightful collaboration by Bruce Mau. The photographs cleverly echo the body of

“Fête du bidet” on 2 February, Candlemas Day, stressing the importance of the object and the intimacy that ladies shared with it: “Many ladies call their bidet their confessor. It erases all sins with perfect ablution”. (33) The bidet played the role of confidant. Erotic literature was not to be outdone and took it in its stride. This was the case with Antoine Bret, *Le ***** Histoire bavarde* (Londres: 1749), where Urgande's young lover Cyparide is metamorphosed into a bidet and his male organ takes the shape of a sponge, thus associating onanism with the use of the bidet. It was perhaps in this same dynamic that Duchamp, father of the *Bachelor Machine*, wrote a cruelly funny note about Le Corbusier: “L.C.: case of early male menopause sublimated into mental coitus”. Sublimation here

referred to a geographical shift in creation where the architect and the artist defined the origin of modernity in a relationship between man and his body, while blending bodily functions and eroticism and constantly questioning the nature of this itinerary.

## Washbasin Woman and Skyscraper Man

Surrounded by A. Stewart Walker as the Fuller Building, Leonard Schultze as the New Waldoorf Astoria, Ely J. Kahn as the Squibb Building, William Van Allen as the Chrysler Building, Ralph Walker as One Wall Street, D. E. Waid as the Metropolitan Tower and J.

INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal

14

H. Freedlander as the Museum of the City of New York, Edna Cowan, also known as “The Basin Girl”, was the only woman in the men’s parade at the famous 1931 *Architects’ Ball*. She walked around New York’s dizzying skyline wearing a washbasin and double taps instead of the cigarettes and cigars usually offered for sale by young women in this type of get-up. In the guise of a new hygienic standard, alone among the dominant architects, Cowan wore a plumbing system and exhibited a reproductive rather than a creative loss. In *Delirious New York*, his “retroactive manifesto” as he calls it, an indictment of Le Corbusier’s decongestion, Rem Koolhaas chose to display these two photographs of the *Architects’ Ball*: in the first picture, a row of delighted men dressed in their respective New York skyscrapers, naturally erected vertically; and in the second, Edna Cowan carrying her basin on her belly as if it were a symbolic extension of her organs. Her solitary presence in a masculine architectural universe speaks of the isolation of women and the hierarchy that prevailed in architecture. (34) To better understand the sad banality of this situation, we must bear in mind that after completing E-1027 (1926–1927) in Roquebrune, Eileen Gray spent many months there with Jean Badovici. Around 1938–1939, Badovici invited Le Corbusier to stay there, but when he left, the modernist masterpiece was found vandalised.

the text, and certain exchanges operate as mysterious clues left here and there to be deciphered by the reader, responding to each other in distant chapters within the book's 1345 pages. Such is the case with the first image representing the Villa Dall'Ava, the first private construction built by Koolhaas. The photograph shows a large white geometric area in the centre of the page. The represented volume is surrounded by the greenery of the future site. In making this choice, Koolhaas postulates, as did Le Corbusier previously, that before anything is built, a site contains architecture waiting to be revealed. The second clue to this rebus can be found in another chapter "Strategy of the Void". The first image is a black and white photograph of a naked woman more or less side-on, in which she grasps a geometric shape with her hand, represented by a black bar. We can tell from the state of the sheets that this is a sex scene, and that the lady is grabbing a penis. The volume corresponds to the shape of the Villa Dall'Ava. Both images are constructed in the same way: the black volume echoes the white, turning these forms (a work of architecture and a penis) into an area of correspondence or even interchangeability. With Koolhaas, the erectile metaphor of skyscrapers is replaced by a geometric area and reproduces the established hierarchy. The comparison via this camouflage of two initially identical forms serves on the one hand to embody the creative force of the male architect and on the other, refers to the reification of the woman whose creative role is, at best, reproduction.

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

FACON DE PREFACE.

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

N homme d'épreint me disoit, il y a quelque temps qu'il faudrait bien garde de regarder un Conçez de Fées, comme un genre d'ouvrage fournis à des frégles certaines, & fondés für la nature, comme celles qui dirigent le génie d'un grand Poète

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>
33 Sylvain Maréchal, *L'Almanach des honnêtes femmes pour l'année 1790* (Bruxelles: de l'Imprinerie de la Société Joyeuse, ca. 1870), 11, mentioned in Beaupré, *Le Confident*, 20. 34 In this context, it might be a valuable circumvolution to note that Koolhaas's *Delirious New York* is steeped in sexual symbolism that runs through his 1995 opus S, M, L, XL, with delightful collaboration by Bruce Mau. The photographs cleverly echo the body of

“Fête du bidet” on 2 February, Candlemas Day, stressing the importance of the object and the intimacy that ladies shared with it: “Many ladies call their bidet their confessor. It erases all sins with perfect ablution”. (33) The bidet played the role of confidant. Erotic literature was not to be outdone and took it in its stride. This was the case with Antoine Bret, *Le ***** Histoire bavarde* (Londres: 1749), where Urgande's young lover Cyparide is metamorphosed into a bidet and his male organ takes the shape of a sponge, thus associating onanism with the use of the bidet. It was perhaps in this same dynamic that Duchamp, father of the *Bachelor Machine*, wrote a cruelly funny note about Le Corbusier: “L.C.: case of early male menopause sublimated into mental coitus”. Sublimation here

referred to a geographical shift in creation where the architect and the artist defined the origin of modernity in a relationship between man and his body, while blending bodily functions and eroticism and constantly questioning the nature of this itinerary.

## Washbasin Woman and Skyscraper Man

Surrounded by A. Stewart Walker as the Fuller Building, Leonard Schultze as the New Waldoorf Astoria, Ely J. Kahn as the Squibb Building, William Van Allen as the Chrysler Building, Ralph Walker as One Wall Street, D. E. Waid as the Metropolitan Tower and J.

INTIMACY EXPOSED Modern Plumbing Alexandra Midal

14

H. Freedlander as the Museum of the City of New York, Edna Cowan, also known as “The Basin Girl”, was the only woman in the men’s parade at the famous 1931 *Architects’ Ball*. She walked around New York’s dizzying skyline wearing a washbasin and double taps instead of the cigarettes and cigars usually offered for sale by young women in this type of get-up. In the guise of a new hygienic standard, alone among the dominant architects, Cowan wore a plumbing system and exhibited a reproductive rather than a creative loss. In *Delirious New York*, his “retroactive manifesto” as he calls it, an indictment of Le Corbusier’s decongestion, Rem Koolhaas chose to display these two photographs of the *Architects’ Ball*: in the first picture, a row of delighted men dressed in their respective New York skyscrapers, naturally erected vertically; and in the second, Edna Cowan carrying her basin on her belly as if it were a symbolic extension of her organs. Her solitary presence in a masculine architectural universe speaks of the isolation of women and the hierarchy that prevailed in architecture. (34) To better understand the sad banality of this situation, we must bear in mind that after completing E-1027 (1926–1927) in Roquebrune, Eileen Gray spent many months there with Jean Badovici. Around 1938–1939, Badovici invited Le Corbusier to stay there, but when he left, the modernist masterpiece was found vandalised.

the text, and certain exchanges operate as mysterious clues left here and there to be deciphered by the reader, responding to each other in distant chapters within the book's 1345 pages. Such is the case with the first image representing the Villa Dall'Ava, the first private construction built by Koolhaas. The photograph shows a large white geometric area in the centre of the page. The represented volume is surrounded by the greenery of the future site. In making this choice, Koolhaas postulates, as did Le Corbusier previously, that before anything is built, a site contains architecture waiting to be revealed. The second clue to this rebus can be found in another chapter "Strategy of the Void". The first image is a black and white photograph of a naked woman more or less side-on, in which she grasps a geometric shape with her hand, represented by a black bar. We can tell from the state of the sheets that this is a sex scene, and that the lady is grabbing a penis. The volume corresponds to the shape of the Villa Dall'Ava. Both images are constructed in the same way: the black volume echoes the white, turning these forms (a work of architecture and a penis) into an area of correspondence or even interchangeability. With Koolhaas, the erectile metaphor of skyscrapers is replaced by a geometric area and reproduces the established hierarchy. The comparison via this camouflage of two initially identical forms serves on the one hand to embody the creative force of the male architect and on the other, refers to the reification of the woman whose creative role is, at best, reproduction.

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>
Naked, as the photographs show, the guest painted the fresco *Sous les Pilotis* on one of the walls of the house. With phallocratic impunity, he had committed an offence that disfigured Gray's architecture. Emblematic of the sexual politics at stake, Le Corbusier's act was a clear attack on women and their architecture and production.

## Strategy of the Void

Duchamp was not to be outdone, if we believe his possible misprision with *Fountain*. Recently discovered documents about the work of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven query the attribution of this major work in the history of modern art. In a letter dated 11 April 1917 by Marcel Duchamp to his sister a few days before the exhibition, he mentioned that one of his friends, under a male patronymic, sent *Fountain* to the New York exhibition. It seems that the name "Richard Mutt" might have been the pseudonym chosen by von Freytag-Loringhoven, who lived in Philadelphia at the same time as Duchamp, and that she might have been the author of the work, not Duchamp. If she did not take offence at this, unlike Gray, who ceased all contact with Le Corbusier, this may have been because the work was rejected, and because she died ten years later, in 1927. Duchamp would then have let people attribute the authorship of the work to him in 1935, without batting an eyelid. Another sculpture by von Freytag-Loringhoven entitled *God* (c. 1917) is explicitly a masculine mirror of *Fountain*. Von Freytag-Loringhoven exposes this *God* made of pipes, and one can understand the

reasons why the father of the *Bachelor Machines* appropriated this work, which so successfully questioned the symbolism of plumbing and addressed a pseudo-transaction and circulation between the feminine and the masculine. One cannot help but notice the extent to which these sexual manipulations partly explain the eradication of women in the history of design and architecture by modernists such as Nicholas Pevsner *Pioneers of the Modern Movement* (London: Faber & Faber, 1936) published in 1936 or Reyner Banham *The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment* (London: Architectural Press, 1969), his work on air conditioning, networks and plumbing, where no woman, not even in a swimming costume, is ever studied.
Naked, as the photographs show, the guest painted the fresco *Sous les Pilotis* on one of the walls of the house. With phallocratic impunity, he had committed an offence that disfigured Gray's architecture. Emblematic of the sexual politics at stake, Le Corbusier's act was a clear attack on women and their architecture and production.

## Strategy of the Void

Duchamp was not to be outdone, if we believe his possible misprision with *Fountain*. Recently discovered documents about the work of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven query the attribution of this major work in the history of modern art. In a letter dated 11 April 1917 by Marcel Duchamp to his sister a few days before the exhibition, he mentioned that one of his friends, under a male patronymic, sent *Fountain* to the New York exhibition. It seems that the name "Richard Mutt" might have been the pseudonym chosen by von Freytag-Loringhoven, who lived in Philadelphia at the same time as Duchamp, and that she might have been the author of the work, not Duchamp. If she did not take offence at this, unlike Gray, who ceased all contact with Le Corbusier, this may have been because the work was rejected, and because she died ten years later, in 1927. Duchamp would then have let people attribute the authorship of the work to him in 1935, without batting an eyelid. Another sculpture by von Freytag-Loringhoven entitled *God* (c. 1917) is explicitly a masculine mirror of *Fountain*. Von Freytag-Loringhoven exposes this *God* made of pipes, and one can understand the

reasons why the father of the *Bachelor Machines* appropriated this work, which so successfully questioned the symbolism of plumbing and addressed a pseudo-transaction and circulation between the feminine and the masculine. One cannot help but notice the extent to which these sexual manipulations partly explain the eradication of women in the history of design and architecture by modernists such as Nicholas Pevsner *Pioneers of the Modern Movement* (London: Faber & Faber, 1936) published in 1936 or Reyner Banham *The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment* (London: Architectural Press, 1969), his work on air conditioning, networks and plumbing, where no woman, not even in a swimming costume, is ever studied.
Toilets are very special places

Michael Jakob

Shortly before one of the most famous sequences in film history, in Alfred Hitchcock's *Psycho*, Janet Leigh, alias Marion Crane, writes "I regret stealing $40,000" on a piece of paper and throws her scribbles into the toilet. As Crane strives to wash both her body (one remembers the shower scene) and her conscience clean, we witness the first time a throne is flushed in film history. We see and also hear it.

In French, one may say of certain things that they appear "déplacé," not where they should be. The epiphany of the throne in *Psycho* was of course interpreted as such a displacement. Toilets were censored in film, and it was inappropriate to show this sort of thing in movies. By "displacement," my intention is not to refer to mathematics, physics, or politics, but rather to play with the sense of place while reflecting on toilets. Toilets are generally situated in places where the user can both feel displaced (in a strange place) or, on the contrary, in their place (in a safe, intimate place). To depict or to speak about toilets or about what we do in toilets is generally a displacement: one

should not speak about such places. Architects and artists have played with this sense of displacement by placing toilets (or elements linked to them) where they normally should not be, or by simply highlighting them.

In a famous aphorism, Viennese critic Karl Kraus stated:

"Adolf Loos and I, he literally, and I, grammatically, have done nothing more than to show that there is a difference between an urn and a chamber-pot and that culture plays on this difference. The others however, the defenders of positive values, can be divided into two groups: those who use the urn as a chamber-pot and those who mistake a chamber-pot for an urn." (35)

The difference stated by Kraus between the two poles, urn and chamber-pot, at the heart of "culture," is, however, by no means absolute. The distinction between them or better, the system for which the chamber-pot is a symbol, is full of objects that are permanently *displaced*, and here lies my main argument. The toilet or bathroom and its specific objects are, in other words, an experimental ground for continuous displacements. The difference between the urn and the chamber-pot is not absolute, because they share a certain *Unheimlichkeit*. They are both uncanny, the chamber-pot because of its liquid or solid content and the urn for the precious substance it contains, our ashes.

"Culture" or civilization consists of displacing (hiding) systematically, at least from the enlightenment onwards,

<footnote n="35">35 "Adolf Loos und ich, er wörtlich, ich sprachlich, haben nichts weiter getan als gezeigt, daß zwischen einer Urne und einem Nachtkopf ein Unterschied ist und daß in diesem Unterschied erst die Kultur Spielraum hat. Die andern aber, die Positiven, teilen sich in solche, die die Urne als Nachtkopf, und die den Nachtkopf als Urne gebrauchen." Karl Kraus, *Die Fackel*, No. 389/390, 1913, as quoted in Arts Council, *The Architecture of Adolf Loos* (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985), 42</footnote>
Toilets are very special places

Michael Jakob

Shortly before one of the most famous sequences in film history, in Alfred Hitchcock's *Psycho*, Janet Leigh, alias Marion Crane, writes "I regret stealing $40,000" on a piece of paper and throws her scribbles into the toilet. As Crane strives to wash both her body (one remembers the shower scene) and her conscience clean, we witness the first time a throne is flushed in film history. We see and also hear it.

In French, one may say of certain things that they appear "déplacé," not where they should be. The epiphany of the throne in *Psycho* was of course interpreted as such a displacement. Toilets were censored in film, and it was inappropriate to show this sort of thing in movies. By "displacement," my intention is not to refer to mathematics, physics, or politics, but rather to play with the sense of place while reflecting on toilets. Toilets are generally situated in places where the user can both feel displaced (in a strange place) or, on the contrary, in their place (in a safe, intimate place). To depict or to speak about toilets or about what we do in toilets is generally a displacement: one

should not speak about such places. Architects and artists have played with this sense of displacement by placing toilets (or elements linked to them) where they normally should not be, or by simply highlighting them.

In a famous aphorism, Viennese critic Karl Kraus stated:

"Adolf Loos and I, he literally, and I, grammatically, have done nothing more than to show that there is a difference between an urn and a chamber-pot and that culture plays on this difference. The others however, the defenders of positive values, can be divided into two groups: those who use the urn as a chamber-pot and those who mistake a chamber-pot for an urn." (35)

The difference stated by Kraus between the two poles, urn and chamber-pot, at the heart of "culture," is, however, by no means absolute. The distinction between them or better, the system for which the chamber-pot is a symbol, is full of objects that are permanently *displaced*, and here lies my main argument. The toilet or bathroom and its specific objects are, in other words, an experimental ground for continuous displacements. The difference between the urn and the chamber-pot is not absolute, because they share a certain *Unheimlichkeit*. They are both uncanny, the chamber-pot because of its liquid or solid content and the urn for the precious substance it contains, our ashes. "Culture" or civilization consists of displacing (hiding) systematically, at least from the enlightenment onwards,

<footnote n="35">35 "Adolf Loos und ich, er wörtlich, ich sprachlich, haben nichts weiter getan als gezeigt, daß zwischen einer Urne und einem Nachtkopf ein Unterschied ist und daß in diesem Unterschied erst die Kultur Spielraum hat. Die andern aber, die Positiven, teilen sich in solche, die die Urne als Nachtkopf, und die den Nachtkopf als Urne gebrauchen." Karl Kraus, *Die Fackel*, No. 389/390, 1913, as quoted in Arts Council, *The Architecture of Adolf Loos* (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985), 42</footnote>
death (the ashes) from the city to secluded places (the modern cemetery), very much in the way modern hygienic theory and practice displaced *excrementa* and *urinae* from inside to a secure outside, i.e., to a state of invisibility. Civilization is—and here Kraus is quite right—synonymous with the fundamental distinction between the pure and the impure, theorized by René Girard, among others. (36) Civilized humans never ceased to remove “it”, to put it out of sight and out of reach from our olfactory organs. The term used in different languages to name “it”—“ça” in French, “es” in German—is another expression of our desire to rid ourselves of something impure by placing it in a neutral context, where the importance of the human body and its implications are repressed. Architect Adolf Loos, quoted by Kraus, infamously installed a sink in the vestibule of his *Rufer house* (1922). The sink stands in “a sunken nymphaeum, where it gazes out from its alcove, oddly outside everyday operations and the spaces of the household.” There is of course, “no towel or soap, [this is] a sink only to look at.” (37) The sink is *not* in the toilet, but in the entrance hall of the house. It is therefore not only displaced itself, but also displaces the senses of the observer from touching (ambiguous) to seeing (from a safe distance). Loos generally liked to displace things in order to complicate and complexify his interior designs. At first, this rather unusual sink seems to allude to holy water, a kind of sacral protection at the threshold of the house. The suggested purification is, however, completely unnecessary in this kind of space because here, the perpetually clean sink is part of a clean house. What it does, as a supplement—in

36 René Girard, *La Violence et le sacré* (Paris, Grasset, 1972).

37 Daniel S. Friedman, Nadir Lahiji, *Plumbing: Sounding Modern Architecture* (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 39.

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

displacing us—is to create a sense of aesthetic impurity: the strange object disturbs the purity of the construction. There is another famous example that could be added to our catalog of displaced elements linked to the restroom or bathroom. This time, we are in Le Corbusier's *Villa Savoie*, in Poissy, near Paris. Here again, the sink is placed where it should not be, in the entrance hall. In the manner of a readymade object, the white sink reminds us of the qualities of modern living: purity, functionality, and freedom from useless elements. This practice of what Siegfried Giedion calls “befreites Wohnen” (free living) is, however, expressed by a fundamentally useless and bizarre object, the sink, moved from the bathrooms of the house to the entrance. As a symbol, the useless displaced sink reminds us of the advantages of victorious civilization, the history that brought us (humankind) from the microscope to the observation of germs and bacteria to Pasteur and pasteurization, to vaccines, fresh water, modern sewage systems, and so on. Le Corbusier himself had a complicated relation with his body. He loved to be photographed naked, in a nudist pose (sunbathing), he died by drowning, and according to François Chaslin, he was never really interested in sexuality. (38) That an artist should revert the habits of daily life by displacing the device used to clean oneself and thus making it highly and unusually visible is not really a novelty. For instance, as Jean-Claude Lebensztejn has shown, (39) peeing men are a frequent *topos* in European art. Even the absolute purity of sacred personae has

38 François Chaslin, *Un Corbusier* (Paris, Seuil, 2015). 39 Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, *Figures pissantes: 1280-2014* (Paris: Macula, 2016).

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>
death (the ashes) from the city to secluded places (the modern cemetery), very much in the way modern hygienic theory and practice displaced *excrementa* and *urinae* from inside to a secure outside, i.e., to a state of invisibility. Civilization is—and here Kraus is quite right—synonymous with the fundamental distinction between the pure and the impure, theorized by René Girard, among others. (36) Civilized humans never ceased to remove “it”, to put it out of sight and out of reach from our olfactory organs. The term used in different languages to name “it”—“ça” in French, “es” in German—is another expression of our desire to rid ourselves of something impure by placing it in a neutral context, where the importance of the human body and its implications are repressed. Architect Adolf Loos, quoted by Kraus, infamously installed a sink in the vestibule of his *Rufer house* (1922). The sink stands in “a sunken nymphaeum, where it gazes out from its alcove, oddly outside everyday operations and the spaces of the household.” There is of course, “no towel or soap, [this is] a sink only to look at.” (37) The sink is *not* in the toilet, but in the entrance hall of the house. It is therefore not only displaced itself, but also displaces the senses of the observer from touching (ambiguous) to seeing (from a safe distance). Loos generally liked to displace things in order to complicate and complexify his interior designs. At first, this rather unusual sink seems to allude to holy water, a kind of sacral protection at the threshold of the house. The suggested purification is, however, completely unnecessary in this kind of space because here, the perpetually clean sink is part of a clean house. What it does, as a supplement—in

36 René Girard, *La Violence et le sacré* (Paris, Grasset, 1972).

37 Daniel S. Friedman, Nadir Lahiji, *Plumbing: Sounding Modern Architecture* (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 39.

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

displacing us—is to create a sense of aesthetic impurity: the strange object disturbs the purity of the construction. There is another famous example that could be added to our catalog of displaced elements linked to the restroom or bathroom. This time, we are in Le Corbusier's *Villa Savoie*, in Poissy, near Paris. Here again, the sink is placed where it should not be, in the entrance hall. In the manner of a readymade object, the white sink reminds us of the qualities of modern living: purity, functionality, and freedom from useless elements. This practice of what Siegfried Giedion calls “befreites Wohnen” (free living) is, however, expressed by a fundamentally useless and bizarre object, the sink, moved from the bathrooms of the house to the entrance. As a symbol, the useless displaced sink reminds us of the advantages of victorious civilization, the history that brought us (humankind) from the microscope to the observation of germs and bacteria to Pasteur and pasteurization, to vaccines, fresh water, modern sewage systems, and so on. Le Corbusier himself had a complicated relation with his body. He loved to be photographed naked, in a nudist pose (sunbathing), he died by drowning, and according to François Chaslin, he was never really interested in sexuality. (38) That an artist should revert the habits of daily life by displacing the device used to clean oneself and thus making it highly and unusually visible is not really a novelty. For instance, as Jean-Claude Lebensztejn has shown, (39) peeing men are a frequent *topos* in European art. Even the absolute purity of sacred personae has

38 François Chaslin, *Un Corbusier* (Paris, Seuil, 2015). 39 Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, *Figures pissantes: 1280-2014* (Paris: Macula, 2016).

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>
been juxtaposed against the mundane 'problems' of humans who have to pee or defecate in order to live on. And
what to say about François Rabelais (a writer with genius and a physician), who invented an entire encyclopedia of
things that the human body has to expel:

"Then he [Gargantua] dunged, pissed, spewed, belched, cracked, yawned, spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed and snotted himself like an archdeacon, and, to suppress the dew and bad air, went to breakfast, having some good fried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store of fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat of the beef-pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed together." (40)
For Rabelais, whose famous *torch-cul* or ass-torch episode is equally famous, the human body is a source of a pro-found wisdom linked to the otherwise forgotten practices of a 'lower' order (in contrast to, for instance, the purity of the mind), a hidden treasure later analyzed by Sigmund Freud, among others. For Freud, the things contained in the bowels of a child can be expelled or retained. A child can 'punish' his parents by not going to the toilet or he can do it, his inner contents thus becoming his first "gift".

Under the regime of modernity, it is in any case essential to isolate "it" by isolating the person freed from "it". One has to isolate and protect both the single individuals and the group from "it", to remove "it" from sight and smell.
Modern purification practices (in Thomas More's *Utopia*, the chamber-pot is made of gold) become possible thanks

40 "Puis fiantoit, pissoyt, rendoyt sa gorge, rottoit, pettoyt, baisloyt, crachoyt, toussoyt, sangloutoyt, esternuoit et se morvoyt en archidiacre, et desjeunoyt pour abatre la rouzée et maulvais aer: belles tripes frites, belles charbonnades, beaulx jambons, belles cabirotades et forces soupes de prime." François Rabelais, *Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel*, trans. Peter Anthony Motteux and Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1892), 112.

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

to *spatial* strategies, i.e., the construction of specific *loci* in which to liberate ourselves: toilets, restrooms, bathrooms, water-closets. Since the 19th century, we have learned to use these very special "rooms of our own". The *toilet* (I shall use this general term) belongs first of all to a *system*. Its main qualities (each of them a domain to be explored) are: a. The idea of safety and protection, the possibility to do "it" (and of course other things) and to wash oneself inside a closed space, sometimes even closed with a key. An important consequence of this situation is a new sense of (bodily) intimacy. But how does intimacy actually work? Is it not a process, submitted to cultural influences rather than something given?

b. The inside/outside relationship, because there is still a sense of permeability and circulation between the inner and the outer zone. Water penetrates these very special places, while "it" leaves the room, exactly analogous to the process of the human body. The toilet is therefore highly anthropomorphic. The toilet as a cell is part of a larger organism, which consists of the totality of toilets linked to a nearby hydrological system (water supply), a sewage system, the regeneration of water, and so on. The toilet is a place of transition, of translation, and at the same time, of control and order. Before modernity, everyone could do "it" wherever they wanted, while now (since roughly 200 years ago) people are assigned to a specific place where they have to do it and clean their body. The system can be enlarged and take the form of Urinopolis, the important 19th century Parisian project aimed at collecting the urinae of the Parisians and transforming it into fertilizer.

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>
been juxtaposed against the mundane 'problems' of humans who have to pee or defecate in order to live on. And
what to say about François Rabelais (a writer with genius and a physician), who invented an entire encyclopedia of
things that the human body has to expel:

"Then he [Gargantua] dunged, pissed, spewed, belched, cracked, yawned, spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed and snotted himself like an archdeacon, and, to suppress the dew and bad air, went to breakfast, having some good fried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store of fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat of the beef-pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed together." (40)
For Rabelais, whose famous *torch-cul* or ass-torch episode is equally famous, the human body is a source of a pro-found wisdom linked to the otherwise forgotten practices of a 'lower' order (in contrast to, for instance, the purity of the mind), a hidden treasure later analyzed by Sigmund Freud, among others. For Freud, the things contained in the bowels of a child can be expelled or retained. A child can 'punish' his parents by not going to the toilet or he can do it, his inner contents thus becoming his first "gift".

Under the regime of modernity, it is in any case essential to isolate "it" by isolating the person freed from "it". One has to isolate and protect both the single individuals and the group from "it", to remove "it" from sight and smell.
Modern purification practices (in Thomas More's *Utopia*, the chamber-pot is made of gold) become possible thanks

40 "Puis fiantoit, pissoyt, rendoyt sa gorge, rottoit, pettoyt, baisloyt, crachoyt, toussoyt, sangloutoyt, esternuoit et se morvoyt en archidiacre, et desjeunoyt pour abatre la rouzée et maulvais aer: belles tripes frites, belles charbonnades, beaulx jambons, belles cabirotades et forces soupes de prime." François Rabelais, *Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel*, trans. Peter Anthony Motteux and Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1892), 112.

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

to *spatial* strategies, i.e., the construction of specific *loci* in which to liberate ourselves: toilets, restrooms, bathrooms, water-closets. Since the 19th century, we have learned to use these very special "rooms of our own". The *toilet* (I shall use this general term) belongs first of all to a *system*. Its main qualities (each of them a domain to be explored) are: a. The idea of safety and protection, the possibility to do "it" (and of course other things) and to wash oneself inside a closed space, sometimes even closed with a key. An important consequence of this situation is a new sense of (bodily) intimacy. But how does intimacy actually work? Is it not a process, submitted to cultural influences rather than something given?

b. The inside/outside relationship, because there is still a sense of permeability and circulation between the inner and the outer zone. Water penetrates these very special places, while "it" leaves the room, exactly analogous to the process of the human body. The toilet is therefore highly anthropomorphic. The toilet as a cell is part of a larger organism, which consists of the totality of toilets linked to a nearby hydrological system (water supply), a sewage system, the regeneration of water, and so on. The toilet is a place of transition, of translation, and at the same time, of control and order. Before modernity, everyone could do "it" wherever they wanted, while now (since roughly 200 years ago) people are assigned to a specific place where they have to do it and clean their body. The system can be enlarged and take the form of Urinopolis, the important 19th century Parisian project aimed at collecting the urinae of the Parisians and transforming it into fertilizer.

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>
c. The toilet (cf. a) as an isolated place does not normally have windows. But instead of windows (a view outside) it has mirrors. The scopic regime of the toilet is that of introspection, of reflexivity. Modern and postmodern introspection takes place less in the confessional (where one is not alone) than in toilets. I see myself, I observe myself. But this seeing is actually a "cleansing" as well, a cleansing of the soul. Such a general statement requires further specification. In 1975 in Italy, for instance, a law was passed to make both windows and bidets mandatory elements, which can be quite a surprise for foreign visitors to Italy. A foreigner in Italy feels displaced, while an Italian in France can feel the same because of the lack of bidets. (The quite pathological version of the toilet mirror complex is the one we encounter in the *Shining*.)

d. The toilet, considered as a private place, contains (besides the sink and the loo) an inner world, a veritable realm of toilet objects: soaps, combs, creams, cologne, shampoo, etc. In 17th century France, Louis XIV was already the sole and exceptional user of a toilet room of his own (while all others used shared locations), where he camouflaged his smell with perfume.

e. The toilet is differentiated and often gendered, for example by the bidet. It can be racially differentiated too, by discriminating between people.

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** On Displacement. Toilets are very special places Michael Jakob</figcaption></figure>

In short, looking back at the 20th century, we can see that the toilet became increasingly clean, cold, and almost hospital-like. This corresponds to a form of civilization characterized by the cleaning instinct (Putztrieb), the wish to stay "clean" and "pure." In Veneto, they use the saying: "Fai puíto", "Stay clean." And why do people say "stronzo" or "Scheisskerl" all the time, and call the other "a piece of shit"? Is it a way to keep the other away, the person who could infect us with miasma? Our use of such formulas transfers the uncleanliness to the other, he does "it", while we control "it". The other (always a potential enemy, according to Sartre in *L'être et le néant*) is a priori "a piece of shit", "une merde", "una mierda".

20th century toilet or restroom architecture reinforces this tendency by transforming the peehouse and shithouse into a temple of purity, pure form and cool design. Because of this relation with the other, the toilet is at the same time totally solipsistic (individualistic) and totally collective (linked to society and its control over us as subjects, *subjectum*).

Here again, the logic of displacement is at work: the postmodern bathroom is even cleaner than the modern one; it is clinical, cold, cool; it tries everything to avoid looking like a bathroom, and its being-a-bathroom is hidden by a superficial stratum of beauty. "Ceci n'est pas une toilette" (ou salle de bains) could be the secret slogan of such places, while they are, of course, still, des toilettes.
c. The toilet (cf. a) as an isolated place does not normally have windows. But instead of windows (a view outside) it has mirrors. The scopic regime of the toilet is that of introspection, of reflexivity. Modern and postmodern introspection takes place less in the confessional (where one is not alone) than in toilets. I see myself, I observe myself. But this seeing is actually a "cleansing" as well, a cleansing of the soul. Such a general statement requires further specification. In 1975 in Italy, for instance, a law was passed to make both windows and bidets mandatory elements, which can be quite a surprise for foreign visitors to Italy. A foreigner in Italy feels displaced, while an Italian in France can feel the same because of the lack of bidets. (The quite pathological version of the toilet mirror complex is the one we encounter in the *Shining*.)

d. The toilet, considered as a private place, contains (besides the sink and the loo) an inner world, a veritable realm of toilet objects: soaps, combs, creams, cologne, shampoo, etc. In 17th century France, Louis XIV was already the sole and exceptional user of a toilet room of his own (while all others used shared locations), where he camouflaged his smell with perfume.

e. The toilet is differentiated and often gendered, for example by the bidet. It can be racially differentiated too, by discriminating between people.

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** On Displacement. Toilets are very special places Michael Jakob</figcaption></figure>

In short, looking back at the 20th century, we can see that the toilet became increasingly clean, cold, and almost hospital-like. This corresponds to a form of civilization characterized by the cleaning instinct (Putztrieb), the wish to stay "clean" and "pure." In Veneto, they use the saying: "Fai puíto", "Stay clean." And why do people say "stronzo" or "Scheisskerl" all the time, and call the other "a piece of shit"? Is it a way to keep the other away, the person who could infect us with miasma? Our use of such formulas transfers the uncleanliness to the other, he does "it", while we control "it". The other (always a potential enemy, according to Sartre in *L'être et le néant*) is a priori "a piece of shit", "une merde", "una mierda".

20th century toilet or restroom architecture reinforces this tendency by transforming the peehouse and shithouse into a temple of purity, pure form and cool design. Because of this relation with the other, the toilet is at the same time totally solipsistic (individualistic) and totally collective (linked to society and its control over us as subjects, *subjectum*).

Here again, the logic of displacement is at work: the postmodern bathroom is even cleaner than the modern one; it is clinical, cold, cool; it tries everything to avoid looking like a bathroom, and its being-a-bathroom is hidden by a superficial stratum of beauty. "Ceci n'est pas une toilette" (ou salle de bains) could be the secret slogan of such places, while they are, of course, still, des toilettes.
The person who understood all such aspects of the processes linked to the circulation of liquids and the modernistic rituals of purification was, naturally, Marcel Duchamp. His infamous *Fontaine* is a masterpiece of what I call displacement. Duchamp took an industrially-manufactured porcelain urinal, which he signed as "R. Mutt", and proposed it to the Society of Independent Artists in New York for their 1917 exhibition. Taken out of its context, i.e., displaced, the urinal was intended to be displayed at the exhibition, but for reasons that are not completely clear, it was displaced and placed behind a curtain. The meaning or the identity of the readymade is marked by displacement as well: the urinal became the *fountain*. A fountain is normally a place where people drink, where water comes out, appears, while the urinal is the place where the liquid comes in, disappears. By creating a urinal-fountain or a fountain-urinal, Duchamp provoked a shock that was probably the motivation for the conservative reaction to hide an object not fit to be displayed in the center of an art exhibition. The mystery of this almost mythical piece of art is further complicated by the fact that it was photographed in Alfred Stieglitz's studio, and that a version of that photograph was published in the Dada journal with the significant title, *The Blind Man*.

The disappearance of Duchamp's *Fountain* can be interpreted in different ways. It can be taken as a symbol of what we want a urinal to do: to make everything related to our bodily existence that we do not want to retain disappear. In becoming placeless, lost, the Duchampian readymade does exactly what the system intends to do: to create a

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

clean slate or *tabula rasa*, total cleanness. Furthermore, the artist signed his work with a pseudonym, "R. Mutt." In "Mutt" we can read, besides the transposition of J-L. Mott Iron Works in New York (where he most probably purchased the object, manufactured in Trenton, New Jersey), "Mutter," the mother, the matrix. The urinal-fountain is a place of origin, linked to the sphere of liquids where we humans originate. But what about the origin of this piece of art? Part of its legend is linked to the anonymity of the artist who was to present it. Several individuals were linked to its *mise-en-scène*. Was the origin of this work of art as such *displaced* by Duchamp, who claimed that it was his, while in fact it belonged to more than one artist? "Mutt" also reminds us of "muet", i.e., "mute", and "mutt" is also a name given to bastard dogs (quite fitting for a "bastard" work). The signature on *Fountain* cannot be fully identified. The handwriting looks like Duchamp's, but equally it could belong to the person who sent it from Philadelphia to New York. The name Richard Mutt changes continuously with the context, just like the object it is connected to, that changed location prior to its disappearance, only to reappear again in Duchamp's later works. Thanks to its scandalous existence and epiphany, this work of art created an awareness of the things that happen "normally" when we deal with objects related to the toilet as an instrument for removing things.

There is yet another work of art connected to Duchamp, the mysterious Baroness Freytag-Löringhoven, a third artist, Morton Livingston Schamberg, and moreover, to the toilet/bathroom/restroom complex. It is called *God*, and it is a
The person who understood all such aspects of the processes linked to the circulation of liquids and the modernistic rituals of purification was, naturally, Marcel Duchamp. His infamous *Fontaine* is a masterpiece of what I call displacement. Duchamp took an industrially-manufactured porcelain urinal, which he signed as “R. Mutt”, and proposed it to the Society of Independent Artists in New York for their 1917 exhibition. Taken out of its context, i.e., displaced, the urinal was intended to be displayed at the exhibition, but for reasons that are not completely clear, it was displaced and placed behind a curtain. The meaning or the identity of the readymade is marked by displacement as well: the urinal became the *fountain*. A fountain is normally a place where people drink, where water comes out, appears, while the urinal is the place where the liquid comes in, disappears. By creating a urinal-fountain or a fountain-urinal, Duchamp provoked a shock that was probably the motivation for the conservative reaction to hide an object not fit to be displayed in the center of an art exhibition. The mystery of this almost mythical piece of art is further complicated by the fact that it was photographed in Alfred Stieglitz's studio, and that a version of that photograph was published in the Dada journal with the significant title, *The Blind Man*.

The disappearance of Duchamp's *Fountain* can be interpreted in different ways. It can be taken as a symbol of what we want a urinal to do: to make everything related to our bodily existence that we do not want to retain disappear. In becoming placeless, lost, the Duchampian readymade does exactly what the system intends to do: to create a

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

clean slate or *tabula rasa*, total cleanness. Furthermore, the artist signed his work with a pseudonym, “R. Mutt.” In “Mutt” we can read, besides the transposition of J-L. Mott Iron Works in New York (where he most probably purchased the object, manufactured in Trenton, New Jersey), “Mutter,” the mother, the matrix. The urinal-fountain is a place of origin, linked to the sphere of liquids where we humans originate. But what about the origin of this piece of art? Part of its legend is linked to the anonymity of the artist who was to present it. Several individuals were linked to its *mise-en-scène*. Was the origin of this work of art as such *displaced* by Duchamp, who claimed that it was his, while in fact it belonged to more than one artist? “Mutt” also reminds us of “muet”, i.e., “mute”, and “mutt” is also a name given to bastard dogs (quite fitting for a “bastard” work). The signature on *Fountain* cannot be fully identified. The handwriting looks like Duchamp’s, but equally it could belong to the person who sent it from Philadelphia to New York. The name Richard Mutt changes continuously with the context, just like the object it is connected to, that changed location prior to its disappearance, only to reappear again in Duchamp’s later works. Thanks to its scandalous existence and epiphany, this work of art created an awareness of the things that happen “normally” when we deal with objects related to the toilet as an instrument for removing things.

There is yet another work of art connected to Duchamp, the mysterious Baroness Freytag-Löringhoven, a third artist, Morton Livingston Schamberg, and moreover, to the toilet/bathroom/restroom complex. It is called *God*, and it is a
cast-iron drainpipe. With the urinal and the drain trap, the world of the plumber entered the world of art, bringing to mind Duchamp's remark, "The only works of art that America has given are her plumbing and her bridges". (41) The over-designed toilets and contemporary temples of purity should thus be interpreted as what they are: places with a dark side as well, places intended to hide something. Total purity and the perfectly designed, flawless body remove something. They *displace*, letting us know that they are doing so. The permanent displacements linked to the realm of the toilet remind us that toilets do not want to be what they are, i.e., toilets. Instead, they want to be temples of the clean and the pure, atmospheric places undisturbed by miasma of any kind or by any outside intruder. The toilet, which is not a toilet while still being a toilet, corresponds to a subject with a body without disturbing elements on which it depends. Not a body that is peeing or shitting. Hypermodernity celebrates the bodyless body, the engineered persona we encounter in universes such as *Westworld*.

Luckily, art has another story to tell by shocking and surprising us. Art displaces our certainties and asks us not to forget "those things". Kubrick's *Shining*, Pasolini's *Salò*, Manzoni's *Merda d'artista* and many other artworks invite us to explore the unknown territory of bathrooms, restrooms, toilets. Too much purity brings us back to the existence of impurity.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>41 Marcel Duchamp, *The Blind Man*, (New York : H. P. Roché, May 1917).</figcaption></figure>
cast-iron drainpipe. With the urinal and the drain trap, the world of the plumber entered the world of art, bringing to mind Duchamp's remark, "The only works of art that America has given are her plumbing and her bridges". (41) The over-designed toilets and contemporary temples of purity should thus be interpreted as what they are: places with a dark side as well, places intended to hide something. Total purity and the perfectly designed, flawless body remove something. They *displace*, letting us know that they are doing so. The permanent displacements linked to the realm of the toilet remind us that toilets do not want to be what they are, i.e., toilets. Instead, they want to be temples of the clean and the pure, atmospheric places undisturbed by miasma of any kind or by any outside intruder. The toilet, which is not a toilet while still being a toilet, corresponds to a subject with a body without disturbing elements on which it depends. Not a body that is peeing or shitting. Hypermodernity celebrates the bodyless body, the engineered persona we encounter in universes such as *Westworld*.

Luckily, art has another story to tell by shocking and surprising us. Art displaces our certainties and asks us not to forget "those things". Kubrick's *Shining*, Pasolini's *Salò*, Manzoni's *Merda d'artista* and many other artworks invite us to explore the unknown territory of bathrooms, restrooms, toilets. Too much purity brings us back to the existence of impurity.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>41 Marcel Duchamp, *The Blind Man*, (New York : H. P. Roché, May 1917).</figcaption></figure>
A BATHROOM FOR A DANCER

Catherine Ince

42 Stephen Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors," in *A Surreal Life: Edward James* (London: The Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton and Hove, Philip Wilson Publishers, 1998), 94. 43 The exhibition *The Thirties: British Art and Design after the War* ran from October 25, 1979 until January 13, 1980 at the Hayward Gallery on London's Southbank.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

In 1932, British artist Paul Nash designed a bathroom for the Austrian dancer and film star Tilly Losch. The bathroom was commissioned by poet and surrealist art collector Edward James for his London home at 35 Wimpole Street, where he lived with the feted Losch during their short and tempestuous marriage. Although made for a private house and unlikely to have been seen or experienced by many, the bathroom captured the public imagination and garnered critical acclaim at the time of completion. Art historian Stephen Calloway, whose essay in a monograph on Edward James is the most extensive account of the surrealist patron's visionary approach to interior design, writes, "The one truly extraordinary room in the house [35 Wimpole Street], Tilly Losch's glass bathroom, was not one that was generally seen; however, both from a small number of photographs published at the time and perhaps even more by word of mouth, it gained a considerable degree of celebrity and came to be considered as undoubtedly one of the key interiors of the decade." (42)

Tilly Losch's glass bathroom was Nash's only completed work of interior design, and was damaged in London bombing during World War II. Surviving pieces of the interior were removed from Wimpole Street in around 1947 and taken to James' family home in West Dean, Sussex. The excavated parts remained there until the bathroom once again became an object of fascination and exemplar of progressive modern design from the 1930s when it was presented at an exhibition at the Hayward gallery in 1979 on art and design of the period. (43) It entered the V&A collection shortly afterwards.
A BATHROOM FOR A DANCER

Catherine Ince

42 Stephen Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors," in *A Surreal Life: Edward James* (London: The Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton and Hove, Philip Wilson Publishers, 1998), 94. 43 The exhibition *The Thirties: British Art and Design after the War* ran from October 25, 1979 until January 13, 1980 at the Hayward Gallery on London's Southbank.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

In 1932, British artist Paul Nash designed a bathroom for the Austrian dancer and film star Tilly Losch. The bathroom was commissioned by poet and surrealist art collector Edward James for his London home at 35 Wimpole Street, where he lived with the feted Losch during their short and tempestuous marriage. Although made for a private house and unlikely to have been seen or experienced by many, the bathroom captured the public imagination and garnered critical acclaim at the time of completion. Art historian Stephen Calloway, whose essay in a monograph on Edward James is the most extensive account of the surrealist patron's visionary approach to interior design, writes, "The one truly extraordinary room in the house [35 Wimpole Street], Tilly Losch's glass bathroom, was not one that was generally seen; however, both from a small number of photographs published at the time and perhaps even more by word of mouth, it gained a considerable degree of celebrity and came to be considered as undoubtedly one of the key interiors of the decade." (42)

Tilly Losch's glass bathroom was Nash's only completed work of interior design, and was damaged in London bombing during World War II. Surviving pieces of the interior were removed from Wimpole Street in around 1947 and taken to James' family home in West Dean, Sussex. The excavated parts remained there until the bathroom once again became an object of fascination and exemplar of progressive modern design from the 1930s when it was presented at an exhibition at the Hayward gallery in 1979 on art and design of the period. (43) It entered the V&A collection shortly afterwards.
Nash’s original decorative design achieved the integrated harmony of light, space and colour he believed essential for modern habitation. The room—the modern realm of the apartment or bedsit as opposed to the entire house as inhabited by earlier generations—“is of importance and must be considered seriously”, he wrote in *Room and Book*, (44) a collection of essays published in 1932, in which Nash set out his view on modern design, architecture, book-making and the challenges of professional practice. In a chapter entitled “The Room Equipped,” Nash writes:

"'We live in a conscious age... and the dearest wish of most people today is to be aware, first of themselves and then of their surroundings.' ... 'So what time there is must be spent in self-expression,' and one means of 'expression' is found in 'creating' what is called 'our own surroundings'". (45)

Nash’s bathroom design is of significant interest as an example of his pursuit—through his painting and design work—of structural harmony and variety through surface, pattern and composition to create, “a world to inhabit in which one might enjoy the forgotten luxury of contemplation”. (46) Testing his architectural ideas in practice would not have been possible had it not been for Edward James’ own voracious commitment to creating such unique surroundings for himself in his inherited properties in London and Sussex and, after the war, at his sprawling ranch in Xilitla, Mexico.

The Nash/Losch bathroom was reconstructed for the Hayward exhibition by the same company that had originally installed the bathroom at Wimpole Street, and entered the V&A collection after it closed in early 1980. The

acquisition of the Losch bathroom was subject to much internal discussion at the V&A, because the interior consisted of a mixture of original, period, and remade fittings. According to a file note on the object's provenance and acquisition, Roy Strong, director of the V&A at the time, regarded it as "phoney". Nevertheless, the V&A pursued and agreed to the acquisition, and the bathroom has remained in the collection until the present day. It has never been reassembled for display at the V&A, and there are very few photographs of the original and its faithful reproduction. (47) Despite this lack of documentation, I was as captivated by these photographic records as the design interested readership seeing and reading about this stunning modern bathroom and "total" work of art when first published in the 1930s. The invitation to speak at "Intimacy Exposed" coincided with my own research into complete rooms and significant interior and architectural fragments in the V&A collection, which could be returned to public display—or indeed displayed for the first time—at V&A East, a new satellite project due to open in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London in 2024. The context of the research for this paper is our attempt to define which of the V&A's many interior architecture treasures can and should be displayed at V&A East. Paul Nash's bathroom for Edward James and Tilly Losch is a significant example of the conceptual unity of art, design, and interior architecture, and a fascinating story of the importance—and drama—of artistic patronage in the early 20th century. That the site of this highpoint of creative expression is the seemingly humble domestic bathroom makes this object even more intriguing.

44 Paul Nash, *Room and Book* (London: Soncino Press, 1932) 45 Paul Nash, "The Room Equipped," in *Room and Book*, 33. 46 Nash, *The Room Equipped*, 54.

47 Photographic, press, and curatorial documents are held in object record files at the V&A. A few photographs of the re-made bathroom are available through the RIBA image website (RIBA Pix, https:// www.architecture.com/image-library/) and images in the Hayward Gallery archives.
Nash’s original decorative design achieved the integrated harmony of light, space and colour he believed essential for modern habitation. The room—the modern realm of the apartment or bedsit as opposed to the entire house as inhabited by earlier generations—“is of importance and must be considered seriously”, he wrote in *Room and Book*, (44) a collection of essays published in 1932, in which Nash set out his view on modern design, architecture, book-making and the challenges of professional practice. In a chapter entitled “The Room Equipped,” Nash writes:

"'We live in a conscious age... and the dearest wish of most people today is to be aware, first of themselves and then of their surroundings.' ... 'So what time there is must be spent in self-expression,' and one means of 'expression' is found in 'creating' what is called 'our own surroundings'". (45)

Nash’s bathroom design is of significant interest as an example of his pursuit—through his painting and design work—of structural harmony and variety through surface, pattern and composition to create, “a world to inhabit in which one might enjoy the forgotten luxury of contemplation”. (46) Testing his architectural ideas in practice would not have been possible had it not been for Edward James’ own voracious commitment to creating such unique surroundings for himself in his inherited properties in London and Sussex and, after the war, at his sprawling ranch in Xilitla, Mexico.

The Nash/Losch bathroom was reconstructed for the Hayward exhibition by the same company that had originally installed the bathroom at Wimpole Street, and entered the V&A collection after it closed in early 1980. The

acquisition of the Losch bathroom was subject to much internal discussion at the V&A, because the interior consisted of a mixture of original, period, and remade fittings. According to a file note on the object's provenance and acquisition, Roy Strong, director of the V&A at the time, regarded it as "phoney". Nevertheless, the V&A pursued and agreed to the acquisition, and the bathroom has remained in the collection until the present day. It has never been reassembled for display at the V&A, and there are very few photographs of the original and its faithful reproduction. (47) Despite this lack of documentation, I was as captivated by these photographic records as the design interested readership seeing and reading about this stunning modern bathroom and "total" work of art when first published in the 1930s. The invitation to speak at "Intimacy Exposed" coincided with my own research into complete rooms and significant interior and architectural fragments in the V&A collection, which could be returned to public display—or indeed displayed for the first time—at V&A East, a new satellite project due to open in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London in 2024. The context of the research for this paper is our attempt to define which of the V&A's many interior architecture treasures can and should be displayed at V&A East. Paul Nash's bathroom for Edward James and Tilly Losch is a significant example of the conceptual unity of art, design, and interior architecture, and a fascinating story of the importance—and drama—of artistic patronage in the early 20th century. That the site of this highpoint of creative expression is the seemingly humble domestic bathroom makes this object even more intriguing.

44 Paul Nash, *Room and Book* (London: Soncino Press, 1932) 45 Paul Nash, "The Room Equipped," in *Room and Book*, 33. 46 Nash, *The Room Equipped*, 54.

47 Photographic, press, and curatorial documents are held in object record files at the V&A. A few photographs of the re-made bathroom are available through the RIBA image website (RIBA Pix, https:// www.architecture.com/image-library/) and images in the Hayward Gallery archives.
48 Peter B. Flint, "Tilly Losch, Exotic Dancer, Is Dead," *New York Times*, December 25, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/25/archives/tilly-losch-exotic-dancer-is-dead.html, accessed September 1, 2019.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</figcaption></figure>

49 For a detailed overview of the intersection between Nash's works of art and design, see Inge Fraser, "From A Sheet of Paper to the Sky. Pattern in the work of Paul Nash," in *Paul Nash* (London: Tate Publishing, 2016).

Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon (1903–1975), known professionally as Tilly Losch, was an Austrian dancer, choreographer, and actress trained in classical ballet and modern dance. She worked across Europe and the USA, performing in both theater and film, and also worked as a choreographer. Losch's *New York Times* obituary recalled the "exotic dancer" acclaimed by critics for her "superb grace," "brilliant technique" and "much personal charm". (48) She was noted for the fluent use of only her hands and arms, which spun a captivating, rhythmic imagery. Edward James (1907–1984) was born to a wealthy industrialist and a socialite. The family had aristocratic connections and his godfather, King Edward VII, was rumored to have been his father. James was an Eton and Oxford-educated poet, art collector, and patron of enormous independent resources who embraced surrealism and amassed one of the world's most significant private collections of surrealist art. He moved in avant-garde literary and artistic circles, and his properties in the south of England and London became the center of his most celebrated collaborations and commissions. James first saw Losch perform in 1928 at her London debut of Noël Coward's musical revue, *This Year of Grace*. James was twenty-one and Losch twenty-five. The young aesthete was instantly entranced and quickly became obsessed with the beguiling dancer. Their relationship was tempestuous and short-lived, causing a scandal when they divorced in 1934 after three years of marriage. James accused the notoriously cruel Losch of having an affair and she counter-sued claiming he was homosexual, although James was in fact bisexual. Losch lost the appeal.

Paul Nash (1889–1946) was a British artist most well-known for his surrealist paintings and art produced in the context of the two world wars as an official war artist. He was revered for his multidisciplinary practice, which included book-making, textile and product design, photography, illustration, set and interior design. He embraced an integrated approach to art that ranged from the surreal to the decorative and applied arts. Nash's work painted during and after the Great War were a literal and metaphorical exploration of the devastating physical and psychological effects of war. As his surrealist visual language developed, Nash's work interwove the haunted landscapes of the mind with British coastal scenery where the effects of war scarred the terrain. He employed recurrent illusionistic devices such as the mirror and the frame, which gave his deeply personal landscape subjects a domestic and architectural quality. Like many leading modern artists of his generation, Nash designed posters for corporate clients including London Transport and Shell, and extended his formal language of disrupted perspectival space and surreal, abstracted representation to the world of advertising and communication design. His work with British manufacturers included designs for glassware, textiles, books, and patterned paper. Nash lamented the parochial, sentimental idea of the 'fine arts' and urged that the field of the artist should encompass applied art and that patterns should be considered as important as paintings. (49) His interest in shifting perspective and pattern was used to dazzling effect in his bathroom for 35 Wimpole Street.
48 Peter B. Flint, "Tilly Losch, Exotic Dancer, Is Dead," *New York Times*, December 25, 1975, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/25/archives/tilly-losch-exotic-dancer-is-dead.html, accessed September 1, 2019.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</figcaption></figure>

49 For a detailed overview of the intersection between Nash's works of art and design, see Inge Fraser, "From A Sheet of Paper to the Sky. Pattern in the work of Paul Nash," in *Paul Nash* (London: Tate Publishing, 2016).

Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon (1903–1975), known professionally as Tilly Losch, was an Austrian dancer, choreographer, and actress trained in classical ballet and modern dance. She worked across Europe and the USA, performing in both theater and film, and also worked as a choreographer. Losch's *New York Times* obituary recalled the "exotic dancer" acclaimed by critics for her "superb grace," "brilliant technique" and "much personal charm". (48) She was noted for the fluent use of only her hands and arms, which spun a captivating, rhythmic imagery. Edward James (1907–1984) was born to a wealthy industrialist and a socialite. The family had aristocratic connections and his godfather, King Edward VII, was rumored to have been his father. James was an Eton and Oxford-educated poet, art collector, and patron of enormous independent resources who embraced surrealism and amassed one of the world's most significant private collections of surrealist art. He moved in avant-garde literary and artistic circles, and his properties in the south of England and London became the center of his most celebrated collaborations and commissions. James first saw Losch perform in 1928 at her London debut of Noël Coward's musical revue, *This Year of Grace*. James was twenty-one and Losch twenty-five. The young aesthete was instantly entranced and quickly became obsessed with the beguiling dancer. Their relationship was tempestuous and short-lived, causing a scandal when they divorced in 1934 after three years of marriage. James accused the notoriously cruel Losch of having an affair and she counter-sued claiming he was homosexual, although James was in fact bisexual. Losch lost the appeal.

Paul Nash (1889–1946) was a British artist most well-known for his surrealist paintings and art produced in the context of the two world wars as an official war artist. He was revered for his multidisciplinary practice, which included book-making, textile and product design, photography, illustration, set and interior design. He embraced an integrated approach to art that ranged from the surreal to the decorative and applied arts. Nash's work painted during and after the Great War were a literal and metaphorical exploration of the devastating physical and psychological effects of war. As his surrealist visual language developed, Nash's work interwove the haunted landscapes of the mind with British coastal scenery where the effects of war scarred the terrain. He employed recurrent illusionistic devices such as the mirror and the frame, which gave his deeply personal landscape subjects a domestic and architectural quality. Like many leading modern artists of his generation, Nash designed posters for corporate clients including London Transport and Shell, and extended his formal language of disrupted perspectival space and surreal, abstracted representation to the world of advertising and communication design. His work with British manufacturers included designs for glassware, textiles, books, and patterned paper. Nash lamented the parochial, sentimental idea of the 'fine arts' and urged that the field of the artist should encompass applied art and that patterns should be considered as important as paintings. (49) His interest in shifting perspective and pattern was used to dazzling effect in his bathroom for 35 Wimpole Street.
Edward James was familiar with Nash and his work, but the only documentation found in the Nash Archive at Tate, which describes their relationship at the time of the bathroom commission, was a note from Nash to his wife stating that, "James has bought *Swan*—bless him". (50) This pithy insight suggests a friendly personal relationship between artist and patron.

For James, art was life. He expressed his passions and inner world through surreal and extravagant interior design. James' marriage to Losch inspired an extensive remodeling of 35 Wimpole Street that catalyzed a lifelong commitment to the "realization of fantasies through decoration" (51) in his domestic spheres. Stephen Calloway has compared James' behavior to that of a bowerbird, known for building and ornamenting its nest with shiny, colorful found objects.

Before exploring the unique collaboration between Nash, James and Losch, it is important to understand the context of James' artistic vision for his homes. Nash's 'Bathroom for a Dancer' was one of many intriguing interior and architectural projects that enabled James' surrealist interests to flourish in built form. James made minor renovations to his inherited family estate at West Dean, which included the smaller Monkton House designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1902. By 1935 Monkton had become James' passion project for a total surrealist artwork. Architects Christopher Nicholson and Hugh Casson, through consultation with Lutyens' son Robert, carried out significant renovations to the exterior as well as modernization of the interior. Bamboo drainpipes, palm-tree columns, illusionistic decorative plaster *trompe l'oeil* swags around the

<caption>INTIMACY EXPOSED A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</caption>

windows, a lilac exterior render and a roof clock showing the days of the week were playfully surreal interventions that made Lutyens' original design almost unrecognizable. James' close and creatively productive relationship with Salvador Dali came to the fore inside the house. In the 1930s, James was Dali's most important patron and they collaborated on a number of surreal objects such as the *Lobster Telephone* (1936) and the now iconic *Mae West Lips Sofa* (1937/38). Two of the sofas furnished Monkton House and the V&A recently acquired one example for its collection. When showing signs of wear and tear, Dali and James decided that repairs to the worn fabric were to be made into a decorative feature: appliquéd caterpillars crawl along the upper lip, adding a surreal, uncanny quality to the oversized lips. Richly patterned wall coverings and sumptuous furnishings completed the whimsical and fantastical experience at Monkton.

Throughout the 1930s, James commissioned a series of interventions and alterations at 35 Wimpole Street. The first significant alterations were bathrooms for himself and Losch. Geoffrey Houghton-Brown, a notable young painter known for his painted interiors and murals in a jazz-modern style, designed the new bathroom. The study for the modernistic 'Pompeian' mural in James' bathroom, now in the V&A collection, shows a washed decorative scheme depicting mythological scenes and illusionistic architectural forms. Nash's design is, by contrast, a triumph of modern materials and abstract composition. A committed Modernist, his use of industrial materials and glass "offered the most extensive realm of possibilities in modern architecture". (52) Again, in *Room and Book*, he

50 Paul Nash to Margaret Nash, *Postcard*, May 20, 1932, TGA 8313/1/1/223, Paul Nash Archive, Tate Britain. 51 Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors", 98.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>52 Nash, *The Room Equipped*, 51.</figcaption></figure>
Edward James was familiar with Nash and his work, but the only documentation found in the Nash Archive at Tate, which describes their relationship at the time of the bathroom commission, was a note from Nash to his wife stating that, "James has bought *Swan*—bless him". (50) This pithy insight suggests a friendly personal relationship between artist and patron.

For James, art was life. He expressed his passions and inner world through surreal and extravagant interior design. James' marriage to Losch inspired an extensive remodeling of 35 Wimpole Street that catalyzed a lifelong commitment to the "realization of fantasies through decoration" (51) in his domestic spheres. Stephen Calloway has compared James' behavior to that of a bowerbird, known for building and ornamenting its nest with shiny, colorful found objects.

Before exploring the unique collaboration between Nash, James and Losch, it is important to understand the context of James' artistic vision for his homes. Nash's 'Bathroom for a Dancer' was one of many intriguing interior and architectural projects that enabled James' surrealist interests to flourish in built form. James made minor renovations to his inherited family estate at West Dean, which included the smaller Monkton House designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1902. By 1935 Monkton had become James' passion project for a total surrealist artwork. Architects Christopher Nicholson and Hugh Casson, through consultation with Lutyens' son Robert, carried out significant renovations to the exterior as well as modernization of the interior. Bamboo drainpipes, palm-tree columns, illusionistic decorative plaster *trompe l'oeil* swags around the

<caption>INTIMACY EXPOSED A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</caption>

windows, a lilac exterior render and a roof clock showing the days of the week were playfully surreal interventions that made Lutyens' original design almost unrecognizable. James' close and creatively productive relationship with Salvador Dali came to the fore inside the house. In the 1930s, James was Dali's most important patron and they collaborated on a number of surreal objects such as the *Lobster Telephone* (1936) and the now iconic *Mae West Lips Sofa* (1937/38). Two of the sofas furnished Monkton House and the V&A recently acquired one example for its collection. When showing signs of wear and tear, Dali and James decided that repairs to the worn fabric were to be made into a decorative feature: appliquéd caterpillars crawl along the upper lip, adding a surreal, uncanny quality to the oversized lips. Richly patterned wall coverings and sumptuous furnishings completed the whimsical and fantastical experience at Monkton.

Throughout the 1930s, James commissioned a series of interventions and alterations at 35 Wimpole Street. The first significant alterations were bathrooms for himself and Losch. Geoffrey Houghton-Brown, a notable young painter known for his painted interiors and murals in a jazz-modern style, designed the new bathroom. The study for the modernistic 'Pompeian' mural in James' bathroom, now in the V&A collection, shows a washed decorative scheme depicting mythological scenes and illusionistic architectural forms. Nash's design is, by contrast, a triumph of modern materials and abstract composition. A committed Modernist, his use of industrial materials and glass "offered the most extensive realm of possibilities in modern architecture". (52) Again, in *Room and Book*, he

50 Paul Nash to Margaret Nash, *Postcard*, May 20, 1932, TGA 8313/1/1/223, Paul Nash Archive, Tate Britain. 51 Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors", 98.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>52 Nash, *The Room Equipped*, 51.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_31.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /></figure>

noted that, "its influence begins to change the character of interior structure and decoration. No other material contains so many elements of magic." He went on, "[...] a careful study of its application must stimulate the least imaginative mind and excite it to adventure". (53)

The Nash/Losch bathroom is made up of panes of co-lored and mirrored glass. Some were plain and others patterned with a mottled and dimpled surface texture, a feature designed so that the effect of steam and condensation on the glass did not destroy the overall interior effect. The glass panels were in shades of black, purple, and pink, which created a luxurious setting that was also dynamic, emphasizing Nash's bespoke concept for his dancer client. The irregular arrangement of the glass panels creates fractured reflections and a broken decorative rhythm to produce an ever-changing balletic mural enhanced by the room's lush and shifting color palette. "We are no longer interested in renovations. We are beginning to work in terms of architectural relations [...] we are studying surface and grain, texture and vibration," (54) writes Nash.

Spatial and design elements such as the arabesque curves of the lighting fixtures, angled mirrored panels, and the bathroom's unique practice ladder underline Nash's choreography of the space and the disorientating sense of movement in his design. Photographers Dell and Wainwright adopted a New Objectivity approach to composition in their images for a period publication, capturing the dizzying sensation of experiencing the space through angled reflections. Imagining the body viewed in this space, Nash's use of mirror panels suggests a surrealist

preoccupation with the body as explored in photography, particularly the intensely scrutinized female form and its often distorted, dismembered, and fragmented representation. There are no photographs of the bathroom in use, and indeed it is not clear if the practice ladder was ever used by Losch. The object is an appropriate playful motif in the overall scheme, and signals Nash's recurrent exploration of movement and three-dimensional pictorial space, in his paintings and illustrations from that time, using ladders and open-frame architectural structures. While little is known about Losch's involvement in the commission, Nash's environment is undeniably a performative space, a total artwork conceived for a dancer and choreographer. According to influential *Vogue* journalist Madge Garland, writing at the time, it was the *ne plus ultra* in bathrooms. (55)

In 1930, Nash submitted a design for an apartment interior to a competition run by the *Architectural Review* magazine. The fictitious client was "Lord Benbow", a Clydesdale shipbuilder, who was characterized as a traditionalist with an interest in sport. Nash's design for a "sporty" apartment is an exuberant, tongue-in-cheek rendering of the furniture of sporting activity—from football nets and rugby goalposts to tennis court markings and a bowling-alley like bar—transposed to the modern interior. The palette of materials prefigures the Losch bathroom. Here we see black and transparent glass, chromed metal, and the recurring structural forms and lattice patterns, which appear in his paintings, illustrations and textile designs.

Lord Benbow's apartment is a theater of fantasy and the Losch bathroom design is likewise a stage set, albeit

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

55 Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors", 94.
<figure><img src="image_31.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED A Bathroom for a Dancer Catherine Ince</figcaption></figure>

55 Calloway, "Edward James' Interiors", 94.

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

noted that, "its influence begins to change the character of interior structure and decoration. No other material contains so many elements of magic." He went on, "[...] a careful study of its application must stimulate the least imaginative mind and excite it to adventure". (53)

The Nash/Losch bathroom is made up of panes of co-lored and mirrored glass. Some were plain and others patterned with a mottled and dimpled surface texture, a feature designed so that the effect of steam and condensation on the glass did not destroy the overall interior effect. The glass panels were in shades of black, purple, and pink, which created a luxurious setting that was also dynamic, emphasizing Nash's bespoke concept for his dancer client. The irregular arrangement of the glass panels creates fractured reflections and a broken decorative rhythm to produce an ever-changing balletic mural enhanced by the room's lush and shifting color palette. "We are no longer interested in renovations. We are beginning to work in terms of architectural relations [...] we are studying surface and grain, texture and vibration," (54) writes Nash.

Spatial and design elements such as the arabesque curves of the lighting fixtures, angled mirrored panels, and the bathroom's unique practice ladder underline Nash's choreography of the space and the disorientating sense of movement in his design. Photographers Dell and Wainwright adopted a New Objectivity approach to composition in their images for a period publication, capturing the dizzying sensation of experiencing the space through angled reflections. Imagining the body viewed in this space, Nash's use of mirror panels suggests a surrealist

preoccupation with the body as explored in photography, particularly the intensely scrutinized female form and its often distorted, dismembered, and fragmented representation. There are no photographs of the bathroom in use, and indeed it is not clear if the practice ladder was ever used by Losch. The object is an appropriate playful motif in the overall scheme, and signals Nash's recurrent exploration of movement and three-dimensional pictorial space, in his paintings and illustrations from that time, using ladders and open-frame architectural structures. While little is known about Losch's involvement in the commission, Nash's environment is undeniably a performative space, a total artwork conceived for a dancer and choreographer. According to influential *Vogue* journalist Madge Garland, writing at the time, it was the *ne plus ultra* in bathrooms. (55)

In 1930, Nash submitted a design for an apartment interior to a competition run by the *Architectural Review* magazine. The fictitious client was "Lord Benbow", a Clydesdale shipbuilder, who was characterized as a traditionalist with an interest in sport. Nash's design for a "sporty" apartment is an exuberant, tongue-in-cheek rendering of the furniture of sporting activity—from football nets and rugby goalposts to tennis court markings and a bowling-alley like bar—transposed to the modern interior. The palette of materials prefigures the Losch bathroom. Here we see black and transparent glass, chromed metal, and the recurring structural forms and lattice patterns, which appear in his paintings, illustrations and textile designs.

Lord Benbow's apartment is a theater of fantasy and the Losch bathroom design is likewise a stage set, albeit
one in which the intimate toilette ritual is performed alone or at most—we imagine—to an audience of one. The splendor and sensuousness of the interior suggests that other performances await, and Nash’s design achieves the quality of an installation: a stage set with support structures and props for the protagonists of 35 Wimpole Street. The overlap of life and art was taken to further extremes when James commissioned Green and Abbot to produce a carpet leading to the bathroom bearing a repeat pattern of Losch’s wet footprint. The carpet was redesigned for West Dean but, following their divorce, Losch’s footprint was replaced with the paw-print of James’ pet dog.

In 1933, in desperation to save his ailing marriage, James financed Les Ballets, a newly formed dance company enabling productions starring Losch to be staged in Paris and London. Sets for productions such as the ballet *L'Errante*, choreographed by George Balanchine with set designs by Pavel Tchelitchew, are reminiscent of the extravagant drapery of James' study at Wimpole Street. The surreal splendor of the interiors and decorative set-pieces such as the study and bathrooms, intensify the stage set quality of the house. The bathroom is both the site of an intimate, ritual performance and the backdrop to a performed life. The interiors and James' collection of props from original artworks to decorative and architectural objects take on the quality of a carefully staged installation: a 'total' architecture for an art-directed life.

The photo documentation of the re-staged bathroom at the Hayward Gallery exhibition in 1979 reveals the performative and glamorous nightclub-like quality of the space through Nash's use of architectural glass, lighting

and chromed fittings. The bathroom transforms from private to public space, awaiting activation by a cast of unknown but imaginable actors. For a major Paul Nash retrospective at Tate Britain in 2016, the cultural historian Michael Bracewell discussed Nash's work with exhibition curator Inga Fraser and artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz for *Tate, Etc*. magazine. Exploring the lineage of 20th century artistic practice and the blurring of boundaries between creative disciplines, Bracewell posits that it takes little for the viewer to "shift perspective and intention to view an interior like that as an installation." (56) He goes on:

"The uptake of ideas from the Modern Movement, Art Deco and the early 1970s by pop stylists was this notion that you took something from the world of fine art and you put it on the front line of mainstream pop culture, and you lived it [...] But it is also on the aesthetic frequency of being in a very cool room, or a set for people in which to act something out. What interests me is the blurring between something that has been designed as part of the service industry and something which is being used as almost a prop."

Edward James' approach to interiors is perhaps the ultimate idea of an art-directed lifestyle. The uninhabited Nash/Losch bathroom awaits live theatrical or cinematic direction and speaks of a film-set as much as a stage or nightclub set. Promotional photography of the bathroom recalls a suite of photographs in the V&A collection by British photographer Bridget Smith. Taken in 1999, *Glamour Studio* documents the empty sets constructed for glamour photography in the pornographic industry. Smith writes, "I have chosen to photograph sets from the world of glamour

<footnote n="56">56 Michael Bracewell et al., "From the Surreal to the Decorative," *Tate Britain*, https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-38-autumn-2016/surreal-decorative, accessed February 4, 2021.</footnote>
one in which the intimate toilette ritual is performed alone or at most—we imagine—to an audience of one. The splendor and sensuousness of the interior suggests that other performances await, and Nash’s design achieves the quality of an installation: a stage set with support structures and props for the protagonists of 35 Wimpole Street. The overlap of life and art was taken to further extremes when James commissioned Green and Abbot to produce a carpet leading to the bathroom bearing a repeat pattern of Losch’s wet footprint. The carpet was redesigned for West Dean but, following their divorce, Losch’s footprint was replaced with the paw-print of James’ pet dog.

In 1933, in desperation to save his ailing marriage, James financed Les Ballets, a newly formed dance company enabling productions starring Losch to be staged in Paris and London. Sets for productions such as the ballet *L'Errante*, choreographed by George Balanchine with set designs by Pavel Tchelitchew, are reminiscent of the extravagant drapery of James' study at Wimpole Street. The surreal splendor of the interiors and decorative set-pieces such as the study and bathrooms, intensify the stage set quality of the house. The bathroom is both the site of an intimate, ritual performance and the backdrop to a performed life. The interiors and James' collection of props from original artworks to decorative and architectural objects take on the quality of a carefully staged installation: a 'total' architecture for an art-directed life.

The photo documentation of the re-staged bathroom at the Hayward Gallery exhibition in 1979 reveals the performative and glamorous nightclub-like quality of the space through Nash's use of architectural glass, lighting

and chromed fittings. The bathroom transforms from private to public space, awaiting activation by a cast of unknown but imaginable actors. For a major Paul Nash retrospective at Tate Britain in 2016, the cultural historian Michael Bracewell discussed Nash's work with exhibition curator Inga Fraser and artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz for *Tate, Etc*. magazine. Exploring the lineage of 20th century artistic practice and the blurring of boundaries between creative disciplines, Bracewell posits that it takes little for the viewer to "shift perspective and intention to view an interior like that as an installation." (56) He goes on:

"The uptake of ideas from the Modern Movement, Art Deco and the early 1970s by pop stylists was this notion that you took something from the world of fine art and you put it on the front line of mainstream pop culture, and you lived it [...] But it is also on the aesthetic frequency of being in a very cool room, or a set for people in which to act something out. What interests me is the blurring between something that has been designed as part of the service industry and something which is being used as almost a prop."

Edward James' approach to interiors is perhaps the ultimate idea of an art-directed lifestyle. The uninhabited Nash/Losch bathroom awaits live theatrical or cinematic direction and speaks of a film-set as much as a stage or nightclub set. Promotional photography of the bathroom recalls a suite of photographs in the V&A collection by British photographer Bridget Smith. Taken in 1999, *Glamour Studio* documents the empty sets constructed for glamour photography in the pornographic industry. Smith writes, "I have chosen to photograph sets from the world of glamour

<footnote n="56">56 Michael Bracewell et al., "From the Surreal to the Decorative," *Tate Britain*, https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-38-autumn-2016/surreal-decorative, accessed February 4, 2021.</footnote>
photography, as play-acting seems such an integral part of dreaming. Each set offers the potential of the viewer to enter a new role and act out their own fantasies". (57) Here we see the collapse of private and public fantasy, the domestic and cinematic. Both bathrooms are poised, awaiting activity and human interaction to enable us to make sense of them. The mundane bathroom becomes a loaded space, inviting performance and transgression.

Paul Nash's bathroom for Tilly Losch is a rich and complex object. It exemplifies the pursuit of the total environment, a progressive expression of modern architectural and interior design ideas at play in the 1930s. It represents the exchange between art and design practice at the height of the surreal movement. Surviving photographic documents attest to the inventive dynamism and playfulness of this unique environment. It is a stage set waiting for the body in space to describe and bring to life its essential surrealist character. As with all 'restaged' interiors exhumed from their original context, what becomes essential is not just an engagement with the historical importance of the design of this object from behind the 'fourth wall,' but an encounter with its immersive spatial and physical experience. One must inhabit the room to truly understand its significance and design value.
photography, as play-acting seems such an integral part of dreaming. Each set offers the potential of the viewer to enter a new role and act out their own fantasies". (57) Here we see the collapse of private and public fantasy, the domestic and cinematic. Both bathrooms are poised, awaiting activity and human interaction to enable us to make sense of them. The mundane bathroom becomes a loaded space, inviting performance and transgression.

Paul Nash's bathroom for Tilly Losch is a rich and complex object. It exemplifies the pursuit of the total environment, a progressive expression of modern architectural and interior design ideas at play in the 1930s. It represents the exchange between art and design practice at the height of the surreal movement. Surviving photographic documents attest to the inventive dynamism and playfulness of this unique environment. It is a stage set waiting for the body in space to describe and bring to life its essential surrealist character. As with all 'restaged' interiors exhumed from their original context, what becomes essential is not just an engagement with the historical importance of the design of this object from behind the 'fourth wall,' but an encounter with its immersive spatial and physical experience. One must inhabit the room to truly understand its significance and design value.
## POPULAR HYGIENE

(nothing fancy)

Marianna Siracusa

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>

"The toilet is the fundamental zone of interaction between humans and architecture. Today we can imagine buildings without almost any of the other elements of architecture, but not without the toilet." —Rem Koolhaas (58)

From an architectural perspective, the history of toilets in domestic spaces is not as long as one might think. A hundred years ago, most homes did not have an indoor toilet: it was usually located in an outside shed, a privy in the backyard. Although its outward appearance could be disguised, it was usually a bare, wood-paneled structure. The interior was invariably unglamorous. These facilities usually had a small window and were sometimes fitted with more than one seat. In order to allow air circulation, this room was not entirely sealed off from the exterior. Its main feature, however, was that it was not linked to the sewage system: the loo itself was simply a bucket that had to be emptied regularly. Between 1935 and 1936, photographers Carl Mydans, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Walker Evans pictured backyard privies and rows of identical houses and outhouses across urban, suburban, and rural America as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey. The dimensions of these small identical facilities were all roughly one square meter or less.

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>
## POPULAR HYGIENE

(nothing fancy)

Marianna Siracusa

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>

"The toilet is the fundamental zone of interaction between humans and architecture. Today we can imagine buildings without almost any of the other elements of architecture, but not without the toilet." —Rem Koolhaas (58)

From an architectural perspective, the history of toilets in domestic spaces is not as long as one might think. A hundred years ago, most homes did not have an indoor toilet: it was usually located in an outside shed, a privy in the backyard. Although its outward appearance could be disguised, it was usually a bare, wood-paneled structure. The interior was in-

variably unglamorous. These facilities usually had a small window and were sometimes fitted with more than one seat. In order to allow air circulation, this room was not entirely sealed off from the exterior. Its main feature, however, was that it was not linked to the sewage system: the loo itself was simply a bucket that had to be emptied regularly. Between 1935 and 1936, photographers Carl Mydans, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Walker Evans pictured backyard privies and rows of iden- tical houses and outhouses across urban, suburban, and rural America as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey. The dimensions of these small identical facilities were all roughly one square meter or less.

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

Across the Atlantic in Italy, sanitary conditions in comparable dwellings were not so different. A good example is the plan of a "casa a ballatoio" or "casa di ringhiera" (the ballatoio or ringhiera being the gallery that provides access to each apartment), a type of popular housing built at the beginning of the 20th century. The typical plan had eight apartments per floor and the gallery always faced the back of the building, like the toilets. Every apartment had two rooms: a bedroom and a family room, and each room had a window. The family room would have a cooking area and a hearth. These 20 square meter apartments did not have indoor toilets. Instead they would share two latrines and two washbasins along the gallery.

In 1945, Federico Patellani documented the living conditions of Milanese "case del formaggio" (cheese houses). Between 1970 and 1973, for his project "Milano. Quartieri popolari," Gabriele Basilico also photographed the same typology of building in Milan's working-class suburbs, and these images show that shared outdoor toilets were still a reality.

Architecturally and socially, a lot has changed in order to arrive at the white free-standing bathtubs commonly advertised in contemporary magazines or the talking, music-playing toilets with integrated bidet, common in Japan, where they are known as "washlets". But at that time, only 40 years ago, the hygienic conditions of facilities in both rural and urban areas had evolved little. There has been a progressive move away from outdoor latrines. The flush toilet was invented in the late 16th century in England by Sir John Harington, but his innovation was ignored until the late 1850s when the so-called "Great Stink"

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Popular Hygiene (nothing fancy) Marianna Siracusa

30

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>

caused by London's untreated sewage forced the British government to start the construction of a new system of sewers for the capital city and to decree that every new house should have a water closet.

Back in Italy, architect and engineer Archimede Sacchi stated in *Le abitazioni* (1886) that latrines were a necessity: they should be well-lit, well-ventilated, and north-facing, to prevent the temperature of the small room from rising excessively. They should also be secluded and placed somewhere in the courtyard so that the entrance would not be visible from the street or the windows facing the courtyard. As a result, they were usually placed in a corner, vertically aligned around a central waste pipe or gathered in a small tower isolated from the main building. The "closet" was often very small, just large enough for a seat and its user. In time, toilets were connected to the sewage system, then later brought inside individual houses, but even then, the toilet was positioned on the margin of the dwelling, never directly linked to other rooms and

never visible from the facade.

By the beginning of the 20th century, construction manuals were pushing for the toilet to be placed indoors. In order for the toilet to migrate inside, both the floor plan of the house and the design of the actual toilet seat had to change. The floor plan slowly allowed for the bathroom to be placed closer to the living room and bedroom. The object was made from a different material: instead of rough cast iron, it was in smooth
<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

Across the Atlantic in Italy, sanitary conditions in comparable dwellings were not so different. A good example is the plan of a "casa a ballatoio" or "casa di ringhiera" (the ballatoio or ringhiera being the gallery that provides access to each apartment), a type of popular housing built at the beginning of the 20th century. The typical plan had eight apartments per floor and the gallery always faced the back of the building, like the toilets. Every apartment had two rooms: a bedroom and a family room, and each room had a window. The family room would have a cooking area and a hearth. These 20 square meter apartments did not have indoor toilets. Instead they would share two latrines and two washbasins along the gallery.

In 1945, Federico Patellani documented the living conditions of Milanese "case del formaggio" (cheese houses). Between 1970 and 1973, for his project "Milano. Quartieri popolari," Gabriele Basilico also photographed the same typology of building in Milan's working-class suburbs, and these images show that shared outdoor toilets were still a reality.

Architecturally and socially, a lot has changed in order to arrive at the white free-standing bathtubs commonly advertised in contemporary magazines or the talking, music-playing toilets with integrated bidet, common in Japan, where they are known as "washlets". But at that time, only 40 years ago, the hygienic conditions of facilities in both rural and urban areas had evolved little. There has been a progressive move away from outdoor latrines. The flush toilet was invented in the late 16th century in England by Sir John Harington, but his innovation was ignored until the late 1850s when the so-called "Great Stink"

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Popular Hygiene (nothing fancy) Marianna Siracusa

30

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>

caused by London's untreated sewage forced the British government to start the construction of a new system of sewers for the capital city and to decree that every new house should have a water closet.

Back in Italy, architect and engineer Archimede Sacchi stated in *Le abitazioni* (1886) that latrines were a necessity: they should be well-lit, well-ventilated, and north-facing, to prevent the temperature of the small room from rising excessively. They should also be secluded and placed somewhere in the courtyard so that the entrance would not be visible from the street or the windows facing the courtyard. As a result, they were usually placed in a corner, vertically aligned around a central waste pipe or gathered in a small tower isolated from the main building. The "closet" was often very small, just large enough for a seat and its user. In time, toilets were connected to the sewage system, then later brought inside individual houses, but even then, the toilet was positioned on the margin of the dwelling, never directly linked to other rooms and

never visible from the facade.

By the beginning of the 20th century, construction manuals were pushing for the toilet to be placed indoors. In order for the toilet to migrate inside, both the floor plan of the house and the design of the actual toilet seat had to change. The floor plan slowly allowed for the bathroom to be placed closer to the living room and bedroom. The object was made from a different material: instead of rough cast iron, it was in smooth
<figure><img src="image_39.png" /></figure>

ceramic. It's easier for humans to accept the aesthetically pleasing rather than the ugly. This idea is explicit in "Excusado" (Toilet), a 1925 project by the American photographer Edward Weston: "For long I have considered photographing this useful and elegant accessory to modern hygienic life, but not until I actually contemplated its image on my ground glass did I realize the possibilities before me," Weston wrote in his *Daybooks*. "Here was every sensuous curve of the 'human form' but minus imperfections." Weston spent two weeks studying and photographing ordinary plumbing fixtures from different angles, depicting their form instead of their function.

By 1925, manuals such as *La casa nell'igiene sociale, con note estetico-igieniche sull'arredamento* (59) published by Istituto Editoriale Scientifico were claiming that the latrine environment was an essential addition to the home. Health regulations of some Italian cities still allowed the existence of shared latrines but, while financially convenient, they caused great discomfort to all the tenants. The hygienic conditions were deplorable because none of the families would take on the task of systematically cleaning the facilities, and there was also the danger of cross-infection from family to family. Even the most modest dwelling—two rooms—needed to have a toilet.

"The latrine must never open directly either onto the bedroom nor onto the family room, or the kitchen if such a room is present. Some builders have placed the door in the small entrance area facing the staircase; others have done better, arranging a dressing room in which the sink and the shower can also be placed. Both the

latrine and the dressing room must have a window. It would be advisable for the latrine closet to have additional ventilation, regardless of the window opening. The floor must be easily washable and even the walls must be made washable up to the height of a person—1.8 to 2 meters—and this can only be obtained by covering all surfaces with tiles".

Italian social housing apartments built in the 1920s covered 50 square meters on average: bedroom, 20 m²; family room, 15 m²; kitchenette, 6 m²; latrine, 1.5 m²; dressing room, 2 m²; entrance, closet and hallway, 5.5 m² per capita water consumption was 94 liters per day: drinking, 1.50 liters; cooking, 3.50 liters; personal hygiene, 22.50 liters; house and utensil cleaning, 13.50 liters; linen washing, 13.50 liters; latrine, 27 liters; various losses, 12.50 liters. An additional 48 liters had to be added for a weekly bath.

In a city like Milan, cesspools were still quite common in the 1950s, and could also be found in neighborhoods where there was a sewage system. It took some time for construction companies to comply with new regulations, but "hygiene" was eventually achieved: new indoor toilets were well-lit and ventilated rooms, with washable floor-to-ceiling tiles and fresh clean water. All residue was permanently eliminated, including odors. Out of site, out of mind, in theory at least. In fact, excrement does not disappear by magic. It takes a lot of resources—water and energy—to keep the unpleasant out of sight.

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Popular Hygiene (nothing fancy) Marianna Siracusa

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_39.png" /></figure>

ceramic. It's easier for humans to accept the aesthetically pleasing rather than the ugly. This idea is explicit in "Excusado" (Toilet), a 1925 project by the American photographer Edward Weston: "For long I have considered photographing this useful and elegant accessory to modern hygienic life, but not until I actually contemplated its image on my ground glass did I realize the possibilities before me," Weston wrote in his *Daybooks*. "Here was every sensuous curve of the 'human form' but minus imperfections." Weston spent two weeks studying and photographing ordinary plumbing fixtures from different angles, depicting their form instead of their function.

By 1925, manuals such as *La casa nell'igiene sociale, con note estetico-igieniche sull'arredamento* (59) published by Istituto Editoriale Scientifico were claiming that the latrine environment was an essential addition to the home. Health regulations of some Italian cities still allowed the existence of shared latrines but, while financially convenient, they caused great discomfort to all the tenants. The hygienic conditions were deplorable because none of the families would take on the task of systematically cleaning the facilities, and there was also the danger of cross-infection from family to family. Even the most modest dwelling—two rooms—needed to have a toilet.

"The latrine must never open directly either onto the bedroom nor onto the family room, or the kitchen if such a room is present. Some builders have placed the door in the small entrance area facing the staircase; others have done better, arranging a dressing room in which the sink and the shower can also be placed. Both the

latrine and the dressing room must have a window. It would be advisable for the latrine closet to have additional ventilation, regardless of the window opening. The floor must be easily washable and even the walls must be made washable up to the height of a person—1.8 to 2 meters—and this can only be obtained by covering all surfaces with tiles".

Italian social housing apartments built in the 1920s covered 50 square meters on average: bedroom, 20 m²; family room, 15 m²; kitchenette, 6 m²; latrine, 1.5 m²; dressing room, 2 m²; entrance, closet and hallway, 5.5 m² per capita water consumption was 94 liters per day: drinking, 1.50 liters; cooking, 3.50 liters; personal hygiene, 22.50 liters; house and utensil cleaning, 13.50 liters; linen washing, 13.50 liters; latrine, 27 liters; various losses, 12.50 liters. An additional 48 liters had to be added for a weekly bath.

In a city like Milan, cesspools were still quite common in the 1950s, and could also be found in neighborhoods where there was a sewage system. It took some time for construction companies to comply with new regulations, but "hygiene" was eventually achieved: new indoor toilets were well-lit and ventilated rooms, with washable floor-to-ceiling tiles and fresh clean water. All residue was permanently eliminated, including odors. Out of site, out of mind, in theory at least. In fact, excrement does not disappear by magic. It takes a lot of resources—water and energy—to keep the unpleasant out of sight.

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Popular Hygiene (nothing fancy) Marianna Siracusa

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>
Once the toilet was accepted inside the domestic environment, further development was
centered around form and the "liberal cultivation of the self", as the *Elements* catalog
argues. Peter Greenaway, another Englishman, filmed *26 Bathrooms*, (60) a short
documentary about that number of willing subjects using the most repressed room in
the English home in the most imaginative ways.

For most of the 20th century, the priority for the toilet and the house in general was
hygiene. In industrialized countries, this was generally—albeit not fully—achieved at
the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, accompanied by a great increase
in the consumption of water and energy. Today, the average Italian consumes 250
liters of water a day. Common toilets use an average of 13 liters of water every time
they flush, decreasing between 3 and 8 liters in efficient toilets.

But change never stops. The contrary is true. On the one hand, increasingly concerned
about the environment, average dwellers are open to reconsider their everyday habits
if this means reducing water and energy consumption. On the other hand, wellness
has replaced hygiene in the context of domestic narratives, and this is pushing archi-
tects to do further research into the topic. We can expect the toilet to keep changing.