In the visual arts, the illustration of the bathroom is larger and more crucial than we think. Two outstanding examples come to mind: Francis Bacon's dazzling *The Black Triptycs* and *The Women's Bath* and *The Men's Bath* woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer. This helps us to realize that the tradition of architectural drawing of baths and toilets is as vast as it is little studied. (167) The first figure that comes to mind is the master of the art of engraving, Giambattista Piranesi, who proved that bathrooms, toilets, sewers and human evacuation could be use to magnify and also to reduce the importance of architecture. Amongst his immense output we can find detailed studies in sections, plans and technical diagrams of the Cloaca Maxima in *Della magnificenza ed architettura de' Romani*, and the frequent repetition of small characters intent on pissing on the ruins of some of the most important monuments of the Eternal City (such as the famous of Veduta della Basilica e di Piazza San Pietro, published in Vedute di Roma).

In this volume there is little space for illustrations and discussions of the technical drawings. Nevertheless, we believe that it is important to briefly mention this universe and how useful the study of its critical contribution could be, with at least two examples of the intriguing images that we found during our background research for this book.

The first one is a plate in a series of drawings held at the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, showing the interior of a palace in Paris. The interiors depicted in the drawings are part of a project for Hôtel de Montholon (the building is at 23, Boulevard Poissonnière, previously Boulevard Montmartre), a commission given to François Soufflot le

167 The purpose of this book is not to make the iconography of the bathroom and toilet theme in art, but it nevertheless seems appropriate to point out that this theme inevitably involves interior design. One of countless examples illustrates this aspect: the emblematic (self) portrait of Lee Miller in the bathtub at Adolf Hitler's apartment in Munich. Numerous essays have been written about this image, but no one seems to have noticed that the bathroom designed by Gerdy Troost is aligned on Prinzregentenstrasse, a few steps away from the Hofatelier Elvira, the famous photography studio design by August Endell, the first husband of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, "the Dadaist Baroness" who probably invented *Fountain*. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Lee Miller never met, but they certainly would have had a lot to tell each other about the subversion of gender roles in the 20th century, in the realm of... the toilet.

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Romain (nephew of the builder of the Pantheon) and executed by Jean Jacques Lequeu for wealthy magistrate and later president of the Parlement of Normandy, Nicolas de Montholon. The ineffable Lequeu used pen and wash to draw a colorful Plan des lieux à soupape (the name used for the toilet at the time in France, deriving from the valve that activated the drain mechanism). The plate features two plans and two cross-sections of the toilet, numerous details of the taps and a series of texts describing how the different elements work. In the horizontal and vertical "sections of the interior of the seat", ink and wash are used for a detailed description of the feces and swirls of water as the matter is impelled towards the pipe and the bottom plane is cleaned. This is probably the most detailed and "artistic" illustration of a toilet that exists, or at least that has remained. If Le Corbusier had known about these drawings, he probably would not have complained about the luck of Ledoux in not having to cope with piping, and presumably not even Kahn would have come to dislike so intensely the pipes that inspired him for the Richards Memorial Laboratories. (168)

Looking at more recent times, we would like to mention a series of figures produced by Bethold Lubetkin and Tec-
ton Group for the Highpoint One in London, one of the first iconic modernist building in England. These drawings
were probably by Gordon Cullen, who at the time was working in Lubetkin's office. One of figures is dedicated to
the bathroom and explains that, "most of the fittings were specially made for the job, not for snobbish reasons but

168 Reyner Banham, *The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment* (London: The Architectural Press, 1969), 249.
due to the helplessness of manufacturers who ignore simple solutions for standard products”. (169) Sketches and details compare the solutions attempted in Highpoint One for toilet paper holders, toilet bowls, washbasins and taps to standard ones. The captions illustrating the drawings indicate that smooth and rounded profiles, surfaces protected from water, hidden pipes and adjustable elements are more ration because they are “easy to clean”. In the case of this wealthy residence in West London, the insistence on cleanliness comes not only from the hygienic vision of the 1930s, but from a “participatory approach”, which does not resolve architecture into a simple aesthetic fact. Cleaning the interior furnishings is a daily activity that must be considered as much as the function.

"Forms follows... dirt and cleaning", Lequeu et Lubetkin-Cullen would say. (170) However, Highpoint One's images remind us of the most serious gap in this research, the discussion of the conditions of bathroom attendants and cleaners in relation to architecture. This gap has recently been addressed by several film-based denunciations and committed artistic reflections such as the documentaries by Polish film-maker Pawel Lozinski and *Maid in America* by Anayansi Prado (2004), and the fictional movies *Dirt* directed by Nancy Savoca (2003). (171) If this is an ethically terrible gap in our work, it nevertheless helps us to realize just how much remains to be studied in the realm of the research issue which we wish to promote with this book.

169 John Allan, *Berthold Lubetkin: Architecture and the tradition of progress* (London: RIBA Publications, 1992), 199–201. The RIBA Drawing collection also includes a series of sketches related to this project for an exhibition panel illustrating the problems and solutions connected with designing for the elderly (a man shown lowering himself into a bath, a couple unable to operate a complicated boiler above their bath), which indicate an earlier consideration of problems that are still widespread and topical today, but have not yet been fully assimilated into the practice of design. 170 Georges Vigarello, *Le Propre et le Sale : L'hygiène du corps depuis le Moyen Âge* (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987). 171 Katarzyna Marciniak, "Foreign women and toilets," *Feminist Media Studies* 8, no. 4 (Routledge, 2008): 337–356. Tara Atluri and Emily S. Davis, "The Intimacies of Globalization: Bodies and Borders On-Screen," *Camera Obscura* 62, vol. 21, no. 2 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006): 33–73. On the relation between bathroom attendants, cleaners, racism and architecture and interior design see: "You Marxist, I Clean Toilets. Racism, Labor, and the Bathroom attendant," *FRAME: a journal of visual and material culture* 1 (Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2011): 69–95.
due to the helplessness of manufacturers who ignore simple solutions for standard products”. (169) Sketches and details compare the solutions attempted in Highpoint One for toilet paper holders, toilet bowls, washbasins and taps to standard ones. The captions illustrating the drawings indicate that smooth and rounded profiles, surfaces protected from water, hidden pipes and adjustable elements are more ration because they are “easy to clean”. In the case of this wealthy residence in West London, the insistence on cleanliness comes not only from the hygienic vision of the 1930s, but from a “participatory approach”, which does not resolve architecture into a simple aesthetic fact. Cleaning the interior furnishings is a daily activity that must be considered as much as the function.

"Forms follows... dirt and cleaning", Lequeu et Lubetkin-Cullen would say. (170) However, Highpoint One's images remind us of the most serious gap in this research, the discussion of the conditions of bathroom attendants and cleaners in relation to architecture. This gap has recently been addressed by several film-based denunciations and committed artistic reflections such as the documentaries by Polish film-maker Pawel Lozinski and *Maid in America* by Anayansi Prado (2004), and the fictional movies *Dirt* directed by Nancy Savoca (2003). (171) If this is an ethically terrible gap in our work, it nevertheless helps us to realize just how much remains to be studied in the realm of the research issue which we wish to promote with this book.

169 John Allan, *Berthold Lubetkin: Architecture and the tradition of progress* (London: RIBA Publications, 1992), 199–201. The RIBA Drawing collection also includes a series of sketches related to this project for an exhibition panel illustrating the problems and solutions connected with designing for the elderly (a man shown lowering himself into a bath, a couple unable to operate a complicated boiler above their bath), which indicate an earlier consideration of problems that are still widespread and topical today, but have not yet been fully assimilated into the practice of design. 170 Georges Vigarello, *Le Propre et le Sale : L'hygiène du corps depuis le Moyen Âge* (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987). 171 Katarzyna Marciniak, "Foreign women and toilets," *Feminist Media Studies* 8, no. 4 (Routledge, 2008): 337–356. Tara Atluri and Emily S. Davis, "The Intimacies of Globalization: Bodies and Borders On-Screen," *Camera Obscura* 62, vol. 21, no. 2 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006): 33–73. On the relation between bathroom attendants, cleaners, racism and architecture and interior design see: "You Marxist, I Clean Toilets. Racism, Labor, and the Bathroom attendant," *FRAME: a journal of visual and material culture* 1 (Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2011): 69–95.