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.
This essay serves as a time capsule that captures one stage in the evolution of "Stalled!", an ongoing project that aims to create viable inclusive restrooms for everyone regardless of age, gender, race, religion or disability.

INTIMACY EXPOSED

In both my teaching and practice, over the course of my career, I have been exploring the intersection of architecture and gender identity. The 20th anniversary of *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity* (61) has prompted me to reflect on the evolution of my thinking about gender and space. Strangely enough, this broader interest in the formation of gender identity and space has brought me back over and over again to consider an everyday space we take for granted: bathrooms. I am fascinated by bathrooms for a variety of reasons. Organized around water, bathrooms span multiple scales: they cater to the intimate needs of the flesh while relying on large-scale public infrastructures, plumbing, and sanitation systems to work. Encountered in every building type we design, they are among the most labor-intensive and expensive rooms to build. But what fascinates me most about bathrooms is that, contrary to the prevailing assumption that their design is determined by objective functional requirements, they are in fact places where a series of cultural, psychological, and technological forces converge.

Social and political context

At different moments in American history, the public bathroom has been a crucible that has registered social anxieties triggered by the threat of a series of marginalized groups entering mainstream society. Historical milestones include

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="61">61 Joel Sanders, *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity* (London: Routledge, 1996).</footnote>
This essay serves as a time capsule that captures one stage in the evolution of “Stalled!”, an ongoing project that aims to create viable inclusive restrooms for everyone regardless of age, gender, race, religion or disability.

INTIMACY EXPOSED

In both my teaching and practice, over the course of my career, I have been exploring the intersection of architecture and gender identity. The 20th anniversary of *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity* (61) has prompted me to reflect on the evolution of my thinking about gender and space. Strangely enough, this broader interest in the formation of gender identity and space has brought me back over and over again to consider an everyday space we take for granted: bathrooms. I am fascinated by bathrooms for a variety of reasons. Organized around water, bathrooms span multiple scales: they cater to the intimate needs of the flesh while relying on large-scale public infrastructures, plumbing, and sanitation systems to work. Encountered in every building type we design, they are among the most labor-intensive and expensive rooms to build. But what fascinates me most about bathrooms is that, contrary to the prevailing assumption that their design is determined by objective functional requirements, they are in fact places where a series of cultural, psychological, and technological forces converge.

Social and political context

At different moments in American history, the public bathroom has been a crucible that has registered social anxieties triggered by the threat of a series of marginalized groups entering mainstream society. Historical milestones include

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="61">61 Joel Sanders, *STUD: Architectures of Masculinity* (London: Routledge, 1996).</footnote>
the introduction of the "ladies" room to accommodate women entering the workplace in the early 20th century, the fight to abolish segregated "colored" bathrooms by the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 60s, the fear of contamination posed by gay men using public lavatories during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, and the pressure to make bathrooms accessible to people with disabilities tied to the ratification of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. In each instance, the public restroom, by virtue of its being a physical space, transforms an abstract concern into a tangible peril, with the power to conjure nightmarish scenarios that compelled "normal" citizens to physically interact with "abnormal" people that society has preferred to render invisible.

In the United States, public restrooms are again a contested site, this time sparked by the specter of allowing a new constituency—transgender individuals—access to the public restroom belonging to the gender with which they identify. The moral panic over the presence of transgender people in sex-segregated public toilets is part of a long-simmering partisan reaction to overlapping cultural and political events. They include the Supreme Court approval of same-sex marriage in 2015, the 2016 Obama administration guidelines to Title IX clarifying that the federal law banning sex discrimination in education programs and activities also protects students who are transgender, and an unprecedented cultural visibility for trans people in mainstream media. This increased visibility and federal acceptance of trans people was met with considerable backlash. A high-profile example is North Carolina's

House Bill 2, which mandates that sex-segregated restrooms be used according to the sex designated on a person's birth certificate. More than two dozen similar bills attempting to restrict gender-appropriate public toilet access for transgender people have been introduced in State Houses across the United States, and the Trump administration has retreated from transgender-supportive interpretations of existing laws put forth by the Obama administration. Most recently, the Trump administration announced that they are rolling back the Obama-era Title IX guidelines, effectively erasing federal recognition of trans and non-binary people. As a result, battlegrounds will continue to be tangible architectural sites like restrooms.

Both sides of the debate claim safety as a central issue. Trans advocates cite high rates of violence faced by trans people in public restrooms, in particular trans women of color. Opponents claim transgender women pose a threat to cis-gender women, falsely portraying trans women as predatory men masquerading in dresses to stalk sexual prey in the ladies' room. Lurking beneath this unsubstantiated fear are long-standing societal anxieties about human embodiment and identity that bathrooms have historically harbored: they include abjection, misogyny, homophobia, heteronormativity, and ableism. However, a new and perhaps even deeper threat provoked by society's newfound awareness of transgender people is the destabilization of gender itself: trans people call into question the presumption that anatomy is destiny by demonstrating that there are multiple ways of expressing one's gender identity apart from one's biological sex that do not conform to the binary identity perpetuated by bathroom design through spatial segregation.
the introduction of the "ladies" room to accommodate women entering the workplace in the early 20th century, the fight to abolish segregated "colored" bathrooms by the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 60s, the fear of contamination posed by gay men using public lavatories during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, and the pressure to make bathrooms accessible to people with disabilities tied to the ratification of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. In each instance, the public restroom, by virtue of its being a physical space, transforms an abstract concern into a tangible peril, with the power to conjure nightmarish scenarios that compelled "normal" citizens to physically interact with "abnormal" people that society has preferred to render invisible.

In the United States, public restrooms are again a contested site, this time sparked by the specter of allowing a new constituency—transgender individuals—access to the public restroom belonging to the gender with which they identify. The moral panic over the presence of transgender people in sex-segregated public toilets is part of a long-simmering partisan reaction to overlapping cultural and political events. They include the Supreme Court approval of same-sex marriage in 2015, the 2016 Obama administration guidelines to Title IX clarifying that the federal law banning sex discrimination in education programs and activities also protects students who are transgender, and an unprecedented cultural visibility for trans people in mainstream media. This increased visibility and federal acceptance of trans people was met with considerable backlash. A high-profile example is North Carolina's

House Bill 2, which mandates that sex-segregated restrooms be used according to the sex designated on a person's birth certificate. More than two dozen similar bills attempting to restrict gender-appropriate public toilet access for transgender people have been introduced in State Houses across the United States, and the Trump administration has retreated from transgender-supportive interpretations of existing laws put forth by the Obama administration. Most recently, the Trump administration announced that they are rolling back the Obama-era Title IX guidelines, effectively erasing federal recognition of trans and non-binary people. As a result, battlegrounds will continue to be tangible architectural sites like restrooms.

Both sides of the debate claim safety as a central issue. Trans advocates cite high rates of violence faced by trans people in public restrooms, in particular trans women of color. Opponents claim transgender women pose a threat to cis-gender women, falsely portraying trans women as predatory men masquerading in dresses to stalk sexual prey in the ladies' room. Lurking beneath this unsubstantiated fear are long-standing societal anxieties about human embodiment and identity that bathrooms have historically harbored: they include abjection, misogyny, homophobia, heteronormativity, and ableism. However, a new and perhaps even deeper threat provoked by society's newfound awareness of transgender people is the destabilization of gender itself: trans people call into question the presumption that anatomy is destiny by demonstrating that there are multiple ways of expressing one's gender identity apart from one's biological sex that do not conform to the binary identity perpetuated by bathroom design through spatial segregation.
Stalled!, an interdisciplinary design research project spearheaded gender studies professor Susan Stryker, and law professor Terry Kogan and myself, aims to shift the terms of the debate in three fundamental ways. First, while all-gender restrooms have become a hot button issue that has received considerable media attention, few cover it from an architectural perspective. We need to regard public restrooms as a social justice issue with design consequences that can be solved with innovative architectural solutions. Second, we can no longer accept gender-segregated restrooms as a given that answers to the ostensibly objective needs of privacy based on anatomical difference. History teaches us that the first sex segregated bathrooms were instituted in the 1880s in response to women entering the workplace. A product of prurient Victorian values, "ladies rooms" were invented as havens for women who were presumed to be inherently fragile and ill-suited for the roughness of the male-dominated workplace. The ladies room was intended to provide women a home-like environment, a familiar domesticity while away at work. The space also served to protect women from men who regarded them as a temptation and distraction. And finally, we need to expand our purview to create inclusive restrooms that not only meet the needs of the trans community, but also encompass the needs of all embodied subjects of different ages, genders, and abilities.

There are two prevailing design approaches to gender neutral bathrooms: the single unit and multi-stall solutions. The single unit solution is the generally accepted code-compliant model that retains sex segregated bathrooms and supplements them with a single-occupancy room re-labeled/designated as Gender Neutral. However, this single-occupancy solution spatially isolates and excludes: it stigmatizes non-conforming individuals, not only trans people but also the disabled, by preventing them from mixing with other people.

Instead, we advocate a desegregated multi-stall solution which has received support from many trans activists. This alternative treats the public restroom as one single open space equipped with European-style, fully enclosed floor-to-ceiling doors that ensure visual privacy. This solution has numerous advantages. Gender non-conforming people will no longer have to choose between two binary spatial options that misalign with their identities. By consolidating a greater number of people in one rather than two rooms, there are more eyes to monitor the space, reducing risk of dangerous encounters. The multi-user type not only meets the needs of the trans community, but also a wide range of non-normative bodies traditionally neglected in public restrooms. Rather than focusing on gender alone, we are casting a wider net, developing inclusive guidelines that promote the mixing of a wide range of people of different ages, genders, religions, and disabilities.
Stalled!, an interdisciplinary design research project spearheaded gender studies professor Susan Stryker, and law professor Terry Kogan and myself, aims to shift the terms of the debate in three fundamental ways. First, while all-gender restrooms have become a hot button issue that has received considerable media attention, few cover it from an architectural perspective. We need to regard public restrooms as a social justice issue with design consequences that can be solved with innovative architectural solutions. Second, we can no longer accept gender-segregated restrooms as a given that answers to the ostensibly objective needs of privacy based on anatomical difference. History teaches us that the first sex segregated bathrooms were instituted in the 1880s in response to women entering the workplace. A product of prurient Victorian values, "ladies rooms" were invented as havens for women who were presumed to be inherently fragile and ill-suited for the roughness of the male-dominated workplace. The ladies room was intended to provide women a home-like environment, a familiar domesticity while away at work. The space also served to protect women from men who regarded them as a temptation and distraction. And finally, we need to expand our purview to create inclusive restrooms that not only meet the needs of the trans community, but also encompass the needs of all embodied subjects of different ages, genders, and abilities.

There are two prevailing design approaches to gender neutral bathrooms: the single unit and multi-stall solutions. The single unit solution is the generally accepted code-compliant model that retains sex segregated bathrooms and supplements them with a single-occupancy room re-labeled/designated as Gender Neutral. However, this single-occupancy solution spatially isolates and excludes: it stigmatizes non-conforming individuals, not only trans people but also the disabled, by preventing them from mixing with other people.

Instead, we advocate a desegregated multi-stall solution which has received support from many trans activists. This alternative treats the public restroom as one single open space equipped with European-style, fully enclosed floor-to-ceiling doors that ensure visual privacy. This solution has numerous advantages. Gender non-conforming people will no longer have to choose between two binary spatial options that misalign with their identities. By consolidating a greater number of people in one rather than two rooms, there are more eyes to monitor the space, reducing risk of dangerous encounters. The multi-user type not only meets the needs of the trans community, but also a wide range of non-normative bodies traditionally neglected in public restrooms. Rather than focusing on gender alone, we are casting a wider net, developing inclusive guidelines that promote the mixing of a wide range of people of different ages, genders, religions, and disabilities.
Our goal is to enable the maximum number of differently embodied and identified people to interact in different settings while also providing options for those with unique functional or privacy needs. We recognize that there are ways of being different that don't allow for one-size-fits-all solutions: some people and communities have unique needs that require unique solutions. We have therefore developed a two-step inclusive design methodology re-presented in this diagram to foster sharing among individuals, families, friends, cohorts, and caregivers. First, we analyze the needs of a diverse list of end-users who perform specific activities related to the space, in this case restroom users, as they engaged in four activities: grooming, washing, caregiving, and eliminating. Second, we conduct a comparative analysis of overlapping end-user needs and activities from various constituencies. The out-come is a matrix of shared design strategies that guide material and finish choices, way-finding, lighting and the specification of furniture and fixtures.

<figure><img src="image_42.png" /></figure>

Gallaudet University prototype

Stalled! is in the process of developing two case study prototypes for inclusive public restrooms that attempt to take the multi-user solution a step further. The first is a collaboration with Gallaudet University in Washington DC, a school for the deaf that has been meeting the educational needs of "non-conforming" bodies since it was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1864.

On the upper level of the Field House, we are working to retrofit typical sex segregated bathrooms into a multi-user facility, within the constraints imposed by the modest footprint of existing men's and women's rooms.

We begin by removing the existing plumbing stack wall and treating the bathroom as one open space. Then we remove the corridor wall and bathroom doors. Now the bathroom becomes a porous extension of the corridor. Next, we add two blocks of fully enclosed stalls in three sizes: standard, ambulatory, and ADA-compliant, as well as caregiving rooms equipped with a toilet, sink, and changing tables that allow for not only for caregiving between people of different genders, but also total privacy for those whose religions mandate sex segregation such as some Muslim and orthodox Jewish people. Then we add communal grooming and washing areas off the main circulation

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /></figure>
Our goal is to enable the maximum number of differently embodied and identified people to interact in different settings while also providing options for those with unique functional or privacy needs. We recognize that there are ways of being different that don't allow for one-size-fits-all solutions: some people and communities have unique needs that require unique solutions. We have therefore developed a two-step inclusive design methodology re-presented in this diagram to foster sharing among individuals, families, friends, cohorts, and caregivers. First, we analyze the needs of a diverse list of end-users who perform specific activities related to the space, in this case restroom users, as they engaged in four activities: grooming, washing, caregiving, and eliminating. Second, we conduct a comparative analysis of overlapping end-user needs and activities from various constituencies. The out-come is a matrix of shared design strategies that guide material and finish choices, way-finding, lighting and the specification of furniture and fixtures.

<figure><img src="image_42.png" /></figure>

Gallaudet University prototype

Stalled! is in the process of developing two case study prototypes for inclusive public restrooms that attempt to take the multi-user solution a step further. The first is a collaboration with Gallaudet University in Washington DC, a school for the deaf that has been meeting the educational needs of "non-conforming" bodies since it was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1864.

On the upper level of the Field House, we are working to retrofit typical sex segregated bathrooms into a multi-user facility, within the constraints imposed by the modest footprint of existing men's and women's rooms.

We begin by removing the existing plumbing stack wall and treating the bathroom as one open space. Then we remove the corridor wall and bathroom doors. Now the bathroom becomes a porous extension of the corridor. Next, we add two blocks of fully enclosed stalls in three sizes: standard, ambulatory, and ADA-compliant, as well as caregiving rooms equipped with a toilet, sink, and changing tables that allow for not only for caregiving between people of different genders, but also total privacy for those whose religions mandate sex segregation such as some Muslim and orthodox Jewish people. Then we add communal grooming and washing areas off the main circulation

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /></figure>
path. Finally, our scheme adds a lounge area that activates the corridor into an animated social space. The lounge is connected to a refurbished corridor activated by a series of alcoves for relaxing, working at laptops, or face-to-face conversations that facilitate deaf signing.

## Airport prototype

Stalled! has also developed a prototype for high-traffic spaces like airports. We chose an airport as a case study because it is a high volume, mixed-use public space where a diverse constituency spends extended periods of time, catering to their mental and physical needs while they wait to board their flights.

Our scheme for the airport restroom takes the standard dimensions of a typical sex-segregated airport restroom as its point of departure. Our goal was to explore tactics that allow a wide range of differently embodied and identified subjects to perform a diverse range of activities; both the expected bathroom activities such as washing, grooming, and eliminating, as well as others such as administering medication, caring for children/infants, and performing religious rituals. Essentially, we aim to create a shared space that allows the maximum number of bodies to attend to their manifold needs while acknowledging that these activities have unique privacy and functional requirements.

Treating the toilet stall as a privacy unit allows us to remove the barrier that typically divides adjacent men's and women's rooms as well as the wall that separates them from the concourse, and instead, reconceive of the public restroom as a semi-open agora-like precinct that is animated by three parallel activity zones, each one dedicated to grooming, washing, and eliminating.

Slip-resistant sheets of diamond plate, tile, and rubber differentiate each of the three activity zones painted a different shade of blue for those with low-vision. After debating the merits of different color options, we finally chose blue because research indicates that it is soothing, associated with water, health and hygiene, and a complementary background color for deaf signing because it contrasts with skin tones.

Immediately adjacent to the concourse, the grooming station features a smart mirror that disseminates information (flight arrival and departure times, weather, and retail) while users groom at a multi-level counter that serves people of different heights and abilities. Those who want privacy can retreat into curtained alcoves for breastfeeding, administering medical procedures such as insulin injections, as well as meditation and prayer.

The communal washing station meets the needs of adults, children, people in wheelchairs, and people of short stature. Inset floor lights indicate the location of motion-activated faucets recessed into the wall that allow water to flow on
path. Finally, our scheme adds a lounge area that activates the corridor into an animated social space. The lounge is connected to a refurbished corridor activated by a series of alcoves for relaxing, working at laptops, or face-to-face conversations that facilitate deaf signing.

## Airport prototype

Stalled! has also developed a prototype for high-traffic spaces like airports. We chose an airport as a case study because it is a high volume, mixed-use public space where a diverse constituency spends extended periods of time, catering to their mental and physical needs while they wait to board their flights.

Our scheme for the airport restroom takes the standard dimensions of a typical sex-segregated airport restroom as its point of departure. Our goal was to explore tactics that allow a wide range of differently embodied and identified subjects to perform a diverse range of activities; both the expected bathroom activities such as washing, grooming, and eliminating, as well as others such as administering medication, caring for children/infants, and performing religious rituals. Essentially, we aim to create a shared space that allows the maximum number of bodies to attend to their manifold needs while acknowledging that these activities have unique privacy and functional requirements.

Treating the toilet stall as a privacy unit allows us to remove the barrier that typically divides adjacent men's and women's rooms as well as the wall that separates them from the concourse, and instead, reconceive of the public restroom as a semi-open agora-like precinct that is animated by three parallel activity zones, each one dedicated to grooming, washing, and eliminating.

Slip-resistant sheets of diamond plate, tile, and rubber differentiate each of the three activity zones painted a different shade of blue for those with low-vision. After debating the merits of different color options, we finally chose blue because research indicates that it is soothing, associated with water, health and hygiene, and a complementary background color for deaf signing because it contrasts with skin tones.

Immediately adjacent to the concourse, the grooming station features a smart mirror that disseminates information (flight arrival and departure times, weather, and retail) while users groom at a multi-level counter that serves people of different heights and abilities. Those who want privacy can retreat into curtained alcoves for breastfeeding, administering medical procedures such as insulin injections, as well as meditation and prayer.

The communal washing station meets the needs of adults, children, people in wheelchairs, and people of short stature. Inset floor lights indicate the location of motion-activated faucets recessed into the wall that allow water to flow on
inclined splash planes placed at different ergonomic heights. The water is then collected and cleaned in a remediating planter before being recycled. The scent of plants and the ambient sounds of flowing water masks bodily sounds and odors. Located at the back of the facility, the eliminating station consolidates rows of bathroom stalls that offer acoustic and visual privacy. Unoccupied stalls are indicated by recessed floor lights; when entered, they turn off and the now occupied stall glows from within. From the inside of each stall, users can surveil their surroundings by looking through a band of blue one-way mirrors at seated eye-level. The stalls contain low-flush composting toilets that treat human waste through aerobic decomposition.

As users circulate from one station to the next, passing from the outermost grooming station to the innermost toilet wall, they experience a multi-sensory gradient that takes them from public to private, open to closed, smooth to coarse, dry to wet, acoustically reverberant to sound absorptive, ambient to spot lighting.

Conclusion

Creating truly inclusive public restrooms is an ongoing project. Over the past hundred years, America has made some progress: milestones include the 1964 repeal of Jim Crow laws that mandated racially segregated public

bathrooms, and the implementation of the ADA in 1990, which required that public spaces, including restrooms, be physically accessible for people with mobility and sensory challenges. But there is still a long way to go if we hope to meet our goal of inclusive public restrooms that provide social justice, safety, and public health for everyone. The implementation of the bathroom typology we recommend, the multi-unit desegregated restroom, is not without challenges. First, it requires changes to legislation and building codes. This is why Stalled!, in partnership with the National Center for Transgender Equality and the AIA, lobbied the International Code Council to amend the International Plumbing Code (IPC), a model code that regulates the design and installation of plumbing systems in all types of buildings. Our efforts were successful, and the new version of the 2021 IPC will include a provision that allows for multi-user, all-gender restrooms.

Second, it requires changes to deeply ingrained social attitudes about the nature of the diverse bodies marked by gender, race, and dis/ability that use restrooms, and calls into question value judgments associated with practices that take place in restrooms. These values about embodied differences encoded in design standards and codes are not inevitable effects of biology and function, but instead historically contingent constructions that are shaped by changing social, psychological, technological, and ecological forces.
inclined splash planes placed at different ergonomic heights. The water is then collected and cleaned in a remediating planter before being recycled. The scent of plants and the ambient sounds of flowing water masks bodily sounds and odors. Located at the back of the facility, the eliminating station consolidates rows of bathroom stalls that offer acoustic and visual privacy. Unoccupied stalls are indicated by recessed floor lights; when entered, they turn off and the now occupied stall glows from within. From the inside of each stall, users can surveil their surroundings by looking through a band of blue one-way mirrors at seated eye-level. The stalls contain low-flush composting toilets that treat human waste through aerobic decomposition.

As users circulate from one station to the next, passing from the outermost grooming station to the innermost toilet wall, they experience a multi-sensory gradient that takes them from public to private, open to closed, smooth to coarse, dry to wet, acoustically reverberant to sound absorptive, ambient to spot lighting.

Conclusion

Creating truly inclusive public restrooms is an ongoing project. Over the past hundred years, America has made some progress: milestones include the 1964 repeal of Jim Crow laws that mandated racially segregated public

bathrooms, and the implementation of the ADA in 1990, which required that public spaces, including restrooms, be physically accessible for people with mobility and sensory challenges. But there is still a long way to go if we hope to meet our goal of inclusive public restrooms that provide social justice, safety, and public health for everyone. The implementation of the bathroom typology we recommend, the multi-unit desegregated restroom, is not without challenges. First, it requires changes to legislation and building codes. This is why Stalled!, in partnership with the National Center for Transgender Equality and the AIA, lobbied the International Code Council to amend the International Plumbing Code (IPC), a model code that regulates the design and installation of plumbing systems in all types of buildings. Our efforts were successful, and the new version of the 2021 IPC will include a provision that allows for multi-user, all-gender restrooms.

Second, it requires changes to deeply ingrained social attitudes about the nature of the diverse bodies marked by gender, race, and dis/ability that use restrooms, and calls into question value judgments associated with practices that take place in restrooms. These values about embodied differences encoded in design standards and codes are not inevitable effects of biology and function, but instead historically contingent constructions that are shaped by changing social, psychological, technological, and ecological forces.
While important in their own right, bathrooms are a point of departure for a larger conversation about the relation-
ship between environmental design, the human body, and social equity. The controversies surrounding transgender
access to bathrooms is just one example of how the civil liberties of non-compliant bodies—women, Black people,
religious minorities, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community—are imperiled in both the United States and the rest
of the world by being denied equal access to public space. In short, these are political issues with architectural
ramifications.

Architects and designers must accept their responsibility and explore the design consequences of these urgent social justice issues. Working in collaboration with activists, lawyers, code experts, engineers, and graphic designers, they need to form coalitions to develop a new design approach that enables a broad range of differently embodied people of various ages, genders, religions, and disabilities to productively interact with one another in public and private spaces. In the process of discovering creative design solutions that match the needs of diverse human bodies, we can change social awareness: accessible public spaces that foster mixing will breed tolerance and respect for human dignity and difference.

Since this talk was delivered in 2018, the Stalled! project has evolved
and expanded its purview. Stalled!'s original impetus was social
justice, a reaction to the culture wars surrounding trans bathroom
access in the United States. While social equity remains central
to the Stalled! mission, we have since learned from end-user and
stakeholder feedback that restroom design is also a public health
issue. In 2019, we began to collaborate on a research project with
Yale Public Health, which found that the design of restrooms directly
impacts physical and mental health. These findings prompted us
to consider a wider range of end-users who perform an expanded
repertoire of restroom activities, including people who menstruate,
including trans men, people on the autism spectrum, people with
shy bladder syndrome who fear urinating in public, and people who

breastfeed. Stalled! 2.0 is a new prototype currently under development
that considers these expanded end-users and activities along with
the heightened hygienic standards for public space that we predict
will be the aftermath of COVID-19.

And perhaps most importantly, Stalled! led to the founding of MIXdesign, an inclusive design think-tank and consultancy that is a branch of my architectural studio JSA. MIXdesign is dedicated to creating design recommendations and prototypes that meet the needs of traditionally marginalized individuals. We collaborate with institutional clients to make public spaces and everyday building types welcoming for people of different ages, genders, races, cultures, religions, and abilities. To learn more about the evolution of Stalled! and other MIXdesign initiatives, you can visit mixdesign.online.
While important in their own right, bathrooms are a point of departure for a larger conversation about the relation-
ship between environmental design, the human body, and social equity. The controversies surrounding transgender
access to bathrooms is just one example of how the civil liberties of non-compliant bodies—women, Black people,
religious minorities, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community—are imperiled in both the United States and the rest
of the world by being denied equal access to public space. In short, these are political issues with architectural
ramifications.

Architects and designers must accept their responsibility and explore the design consequences of these urgent social justice issues. Working in collaboration with activists, lawyers, code experts, engineers, and graphic designers, they need to form coalitions to develop a new design approach that enables a broad range of differently embodied people of various ages, genders, religions, and disabilities to productively interact with one another in public and private spaces. In the process of discovering creative design solutions that match the needs of diverse human bodies, we can change social awareness: accessible public spaces that foster mixing will breed tolerance and respect for human dignity and difference.

Since this talk was delivered in 2018, the Stalled! project has evolved
and expanded its purview. Stalled!'s original impetus was social
justice, a reaction to the culture wars surrounding trans bathroom
access in the United States. While social equity remains central
to the Stalled! mission, we have since learned from end-user and
stakeholder feedback that restroom design is also a public health
issue. In 2019, we began to collaborate on a research project with
Yale Public Health, which found that the design of restrooms directly
impacts physical and mental health. These findings prompted us
to consider a wider range of end-users who perform an expanded
repertoire of restroom activities, including people who menstruate,
including trans men, people on the autism spectrum, people with
shy bladder syndrome who fear urinating in public, and people who

breastfeed. Stalled! 2.0 is a new prototype currently under development
that considers these expanded end-users and activities along with
the heightened hygienic standards for public space that we predict
will be the aftermath of COVID-19.

And perhaps most importantly, Stalled! led to the founding of MIXdesign, an inclusive design think-tank and consultancy that is a branch of my architectural studio JSA. MIXdesign is dedicated to creating design recommendations and prototypes that meet the needs of traditionally marginalized individuals. We collaborate with institutional clients to make public spaces and everyday building types welcoming for people of different ages, genders, races, cultures, religions, and abilities. To learn more about the evolution of Stalled! and other MIXdesign initiatives, you can visit mixdesign.online.
GRADUAL INTIMACY

Philippe Rahm

To construct a building is actually to build a spatial pocket whose indoor climatic characteristics are more or less differentiated from those of the natural outdoor climate. The envelope (facade) of a building thus has two missions. The first is to filter out certain natural outdoor weather parameters that are considered uncomfortable, to keep them more or less intensely outside, to attenuate them, to cancel them out. Attenuate the temperature of the air that is too cold or too hot, attenuate the cooling wind, cancel out the rain, attenuate strong sunlight and its radiant heat, attenuate the humidity in the air. The intensity and direction of these filtration effects depend on geographical position, latitude, altitude, time of year and day, climate and weather variations. Then, conversely, there is an artificial intensification of certain climatic parameters in order to make the interior habitable, comfortable, breathable. The air temperature is increased in Canada in winter with a radiator, and lowered in Taiwan in summer with air conditioning. We reduce the air speed to warm up or increase it with ceiling fans in the tropics to cool down; we create light at night and more shade during the day. The building envelope thus plays a second role, that of containing the artificially produced climate inside by preventing it from mixing with that of the outside. And furthermore, it is necessary to thermally insulate air—and vapor-tight the inside from the outside in order to minimize heat loss in winter and heat gain from the outside in summer, to avoid the mixing of indoor and outdoor air, to minimize energy consumption and the energy necessary to create and maintain another (artificial) climate inside the building. This constructed indoor meteorology is
GRADUAL INTIMACY

Philippe Rahm

To construct a building is actually to build a spatial pocket whose indoor climatic characteristics are more or less differentiated from those of the natural outdoor climate. The envelope (facade) of a building thus has two missions. The first is to filter out certain natural outdoor weather parameters that are considered uncomfortable, to keep them more or less intensely outside, to attenuate them, to cancel them out. Attenuate the temperature of the air that is too cold or too hot, attenuate the cooling wind, cancel out the rain, attenuate strong sunlight and its radiant heat, attenuate the humidity in the air. The intensity and direction of these filtration effects depend on geographical position, latitude, altitude, time of year and day, climate and weather variations. Then, conversely, there is an artificial intensification of certain climatic parameters in order to make the interior habitable, comfortable, breathable. The air temperature is increased in Canada in winter with a radiator, and lowered in Taiwan in summer with air conditioning. We reduce the air speed to warm up or increase it with ceiling fans in the tropics to cool down; we create light at night and more shade during the day. The building envelope thus plays a second role, that of containing the artificially produced climate inside by preventing it from mixing with that of the outside. And furthermore, it is necessary to thermally insulate air—and vapor-tight the inside from the outside in order to minimize heat loss in winter and heat gain from the outside in summer, to avoid the mixing of indoor and outdoor air, to minimize energy consumption and the energy necessary to create and maintain another (artificial) climate inside the building. This constructed indoor meteorology is
daytime during the night, it is cool in summer, it is warm air in winter, it is less intense light under the burning rays of the tropical sun.

In places with a tropical climate like Taiwan, buildings are built to mitigate the excesses of the hot and humid climate to make it more habitable, more temperate, by lowering the air temperature to make it less hot, filtering solar radiation to make it less intense, less hot and less bright, to lower the humidity of the air and block out the rain. To modify the outside climate and make it comfortable inside, architecture works on two levels: the first level is the building envelope as a filtration of the outside climate, its attenuation. The second plane is the indoor climate as an artificial increase of the filtering effects. The climatic phenomena that are filtered and then conditioned indoors are mainly the heat of the air, its humidity, the radiation from the sun, the wind, the rain, and complementary missions such as the reduction of noise and sometimes air pollution.

Traditionally, architecture treats the first mission (the filtration of the excesses of the outdoor climate) by merging the filtration of the different parameters—those of heat, humidity, sun, rain, noise, and wind—in a single layer represented by the wall and the roof. This single layer used to combine all the filtration effects in a single response, in a single homogeneous line, in a single material, creating a clear and unique boundary between an uncomfortable, hot, humid, rainy, windy and noisy exterior and a temperate, dry, silent interior without rain or wind. This is historically explained by an ancient monolithic construction method that has since evolved a

lot. In the past, the wall was built in one piece using a single material such as stone, wood, or brick. And this single material alone managed and mixed all the tasks of filtering external climatic forces onto the interior of the building, creating a clear, unique boundary between an inherently uncomfortable exterior and a comfortable interior. Stone, for example, was equally the material that stopped the rain, blocked the wind, attenuated the outside temperature, reduced the amount of natural light, while also being the load-bearing material of the roof, which is simply the horizontal part of the filtering limit, in continuity with the walls. This unique type of separation between inside and outside no longer corresponds to the current reality of construction, which proceeds by means of the heterogeneous assembly of distinct layers of distinct materials, each one with a unique and specific filtration mission.

Cladding against burglary and physical shocks, air gaps between cleats for ventilation, watertightness, rainscreening, thermal insulation, working veils, support structure, airtightness, vapor barrier (vapor brake or vapor retarder), interior cladding, plaster, woodwork, paint, are thus the layers that we encounter when passing from the outside to the inside, each one made of a different material, precisely and specifically chosen or even invented by modern chemistry to match its objective of climatic filtration: to block water vapor, block water, block air and wind, block cold or heat, block light and to carry the slabs and the roof.

So today, there is no longer a single line, a single wall, a totalizing material that forms the boundary between inside and outside, and instead, a whole set of heterogeneous

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /></figure>
daytime during the night, it is cool in summer, it is warm air in winter, it is less intense light under the burning rays of the tropical sun.

In places with a tropical climate like Taiwan, buildings are built to mitigate the excesses of the hot and humid climate to make it more habitable, more temperate, by lowering the air temperature to make it less hot, filtering solar radiation to make it less intense, less hot and less bright, to lower the humidity of the air and block out the rain. To modify the outside climate and make it comfortable inside, architecture works on two levels: the first level is the building envelope as a filtration of the outside climate, its attenuation. The second plane is the indoor climate as an artificial increase of the filtering effects. The climatic phenomena that are filtered and then conditioned indoors are mainly the heat of the air, its humidity, the radiation from the sun, the wind, the rain, and complementary missions such as the reduction of noise and sometimes air pollution.

Traditionally, architecture treats the first mission (the filtration of the excesses of the outdoor climate) by merging the filtration of the different parameters—those of heat, humidity, sun, rain, noise, and wind—in a single layer represented by the wall and the roof. This single layer used to combine all the filtration effects in a single response, in a single homogeneous line, in a single material, creating a clear and unique boundary between an uncomfortable, hot, humid, rainy, windy and noisy exterior and a temperate, dry, silent interior without rain or wind. This is historically explained by an ancient monolithic construction method that has since evolved a

lot. In the past, the wall was built in one piece using a single material such as stone, wood, or brick. And this single material alone managed and mixed all the tasks of filtering external climatic forces onto the interior of the building, creating a clear, unique boundary between an inherently uncomfortable exterior and a comfortable interior. Stone, for example, was equally the material that stopped the rain, blocked the wind, attenuated the outside temperature, reduced the amount of natural light, while also being the load-bearing material of the roof, which is simply the horizontal part of the filtering limit, in continuity with the walls. This unique type of separation between inside and outside no longer corresponds to the current reality of construction, which proceeds by means of the heterogeneous assembly of distinct layers of distinct materials, each one with a unique and specific filtration mission.

Cladding against burglary and physical shocks, air gaps between cleats for ventilation, watertightness, rainscreening, thermal insulation, working veils, support structure, airtightness, vapor barrier (vapor brake or vapor retarder), interior cladding, plaster, woodwork, paint, are thus the layers that we encounter when passing from the outside to the inside, each one made of a different material, precisely and specifically chosen or even invented by modern chemistry to match its objective of climatic filtration: to block water vapor, block water, block air and wind, block cold or heat, block light and to carry the slabs and the roof.

So today, there is no longer a single line, a single wall, a totalizing material that forms the boundary between inside and outside, and instead, a whole set of heterogeneous

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /></figure>
lines and materials which by habit are grouped together, arbitrarily juxtaposed, to form a simulated homogeneous wall, a block, apparently unique, unbreakable, indivisible, monolithic in appearance as a whole. In reality, however, today's wall is fragmented, segmented, a juxtaposition of different materials with distinct missions (watertightness, thermal insulation, screen, acoustic insulation, etc.), in addition to the application of dissimilar thicknesses, which ultimately form the wall.

When all the layers are kept together, we maximize the conditioned spaces, including some spaces that do not need to be conditioned, such as storage, technical or circulation spaces. We homogenize the climate of all interior spaces despite having access to detailed analyzes of the specific climatic objectives for each space. Today, if we want to limit energy consumption in buildings in the fight against global warming, then we must precisely and reasonably quantify the energy spent according to the type of premises, the type of activity that takes place there, the number of people who occupy it, the length of time they will stay there or only pass through it. The maximum comfort and energy must therefore be expended in interior spaces that will be occupied all day long such as offices, and minimum in spaces that are only occupied occasionally, such as corridors or staircases, or by non-humans such as warehouses, engine rooms or technical rooms. This means that in Taichung, offices should be very well insulated so that the heat from the outside does not penetrate the inside and the inside air can be artificially cooled to a temperature of about 71 °F (22 °C) with the least possible loss of energy through

poor thermal insulation, cold bridges, cracks and airtight joints. As a result, the occupants of these rooms will live and work in comfortable climatic conditions. On the other hand, we can accept excessive heat in spaces that we just pass through, such as corridors, stairs, toilets or showers where we undress, because the occupants do not stay there for long and they can accept this punctual, momentary discomfort. By reducing the amount of air-conditioned spaces in a building, we proportionally reduce the amount of energy spent and the overall amount of greenhouse gases emitted, since even today, 91% of the energy consumed globally comes from carbon-based combustion.

What we are seeing in construction today is therefore this heterogeneous practice of dissociating what once was the homogeneous materiality of the wall into different layers, different materials and different thicknesses, based on the criteria of optimizing the effects of climate filtration. To combat the excess heat in subtropical environments for example, the building envelope will first filter the sun's rays, attenuate them, sieve them, and reduce their intensity or quantity in order to avoid radiant overheating of human bodies, skin, clothes, building materials, and furniture inside the building that are exposed to direct sunlight. This is the the sun blocker, low-emissive glazing, that interrupts the passage of infrared light from the outside to the inside, obviously an opposition of solid surfaces against the sun. This reduction of direct solar energy input by radiation will also reduce the air temperature inside by a few degrees. Next, we will distance the excessively hot outside air by thermally insulating the building with

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Gradual Intimacy Philippe Rahm</figcaption></figure>
lines and materials which by habit are grouped together, arbitrarily juxtaposed, to form a simulated homogeneous wall, a block, apparently unique, unbreakable, indivisible, monolithic in appearance as a whole. In reality, however, today's wall is fragmented, segmented, a juxtaposition of different materials with distinct missions (watertightness, thermal insulation, screen, acoustic insulation, etc.), in addition to the application of dissimilar thicknesses, which ultimately form the wall.

When all the layers are kept together, we maximize the conditioned spaces, including some spaces that do not need to be conditioned, such as storage, technical or circulation spaces. We homogenize the climate of all interior spaces despite having access to detailed analyzes of the specific climatic objectives for each space. Today, if we want to limit energy consumption in buildings in the fight against global warming, then we must precisely and reasonably quantify the energy spent according to the type of premises, the type of activity that takes place there, the number of people who occupy it, the length of time they will stay there or only pass through it. The maximum comfort and energy must therefore be expended in interior spaces that will be occupied all day long such as offices, and minimum in spaces that are only occupied occasionally, such as corridors or staircases, or by non-humans such as warehouses, engine rooms or technical rooms. This means that in Taichung, offices should be very well insulated so that the heat from the outside does not penetrate the inside and the inside air can be artificially cooled to a temperature of about 71 °F (22 °C) with the least possible loss of energy through

poor thermal insulation, cold bridges, cracks and airtight joints. As a result, the occupants of these rooms will live and work in comfortable climatic conditions. On the other hand, we can accept excessive heat in spaces that we just pass through, such as corridors, stairs, toilets or showers where we undress, because the occupants do not stay there for long and they can accept this punctual, momentary discomfort. By reducing the amount of air-conditioned spaces in a building, we proportionally reduce the amount of energy spent and the overall amount of greenhouse gases emitted, since even today, 91% of the energy consumed globally comes from carbon-based combustion.

What we are seeing in construction today is therefore this heterogeneous practice of dissociating what once was the homogeneous materiality of the wall into different layers, different materials and different thicknesses, based on the criteria of optimizing the effects of climate filtration. To combat the excess heat in subtropical environments for example, the building envelope will first filter the sun's rays, attenuate them, sieve them, and reduce their intensity or quantity in order to avoid radiant overheating of human bodies, skin, clothes, building materials, and furniture inside the building that are exposed to direct sunlight. This is the sun blocker, low-emissive glazing, that interrupts the passage of infrared light from the outside to the inside, obviously an opposition of solid surfaces against the sun. This reduction of direct solar energy input by radiation will also reduce the air temperature inside by a few degrees. Next, we will distance the excessively hot outside air by thermally insulating the building with

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Gradual Intimacy Philippe Rahm</figcaption></figure>
a continuous 20 cm thick layer of wool that traps billions of small air bubbles to prevent heat transfer by conduction from the outside air to the inside air that we want to keep cooler. Once the excess heat of the outdoor climate has been filtered out, the temperature of the indoor air is lowered by means of thermodynamic air conditioning.

To maintain the monolithic appearance of the wall, layers of dissimilar materials are usually grouped together on the same plane, which could equally well separate, space out, and expand from each other to form intermediate spaces with mixed climatic qualities in the way that the balcony, conservatory, pergola or bow window, for example, may have worked in the past. By expanding the layers that constitute the facade to create intermediate spaces between them, to make the in-between habitable, peeling the layers from each other, creating a habitable space between the watertightness and the thermal insulation, for example, the climatic richness of the interior spaces can be broadened, interior life can be diversified and the energy expenditure in the building can be reduced by only using air conditioning where it is really necessary.

The buildings that we have designed for the 67 hectare Taichung Central Park in Taiwan are a result of this dissociation of the usually single line of the building envelope into a multitude of layers, each one of which has a specific climatic property: for protection from rain, from heat, from wind, from noise, from intrusion or from sight. These different layers come together and diverge from each other to create habitable intermediate spaces, each one offering specific climatic qualities with its own mode of air conditioning, ventilation, and lighting.

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Gradual Intimacy Philippe Rahm</figcaption></figure>

Central Park is the urban attractor for a new 256 hectare district in the City of Taichung, Taiwan, built on the site of the old airport. The 67 hectare park has more than 10,000 trees and manages the rainfall runoff in the new urban district with retention basins that generate the park's topography. My team, Philippe Rahm architectes, in conjunction with Mosbach Paysagistes and Ricky Liu & Associates, won the international competition in 2011 and the park was officially completed and opened on December 6, 2020.

Taichung has a hot, humid, and polluted tropical climate. The ambition of the park is to offer cooler, drier, and less polluted places. The formal composition strategy of the masterplan is based on climate, cartography, and the design of the variations in heat, humidity and air pollution, which are superimposed to invent a multitude of microclimates and varied ambiances that generate aesthetic richness and a diversity of uses. The choice of location and species for the trees, the nature of the soils and the program are all guided by the climate. Thus, in places that are naturally coolest—due to their exposure to the cold north wind—we amplify the forest cover to create shade and thus double their freshness. The soils are rich in evaporative grass species with a high albedo to amplify the coolness. In locations farthest from sources of humidity, we amplify trees with floating roots to reduce their moisture content, and the soils are chosen for their particularly good drainage capacity. In areas far from roads, we increase the number of trees with hairy leaves to reduce air pollution. The program follows the climate: the less polluted areas are used for children's playgrounds, the drier areas are for sports, and the cooler areas are for various leisure programs.

<figure><img src="image_48.png" /></figure>
a continuous 20 cm thick layer of wool that traps billions of small air bubbles to prevent heat transfer by conduction from the outside air to the inside air that we want to keep cooler. Once the excess heat of the outdoor climate has been filtered out, the temperature of the indoor air is lowered by means of thermodynamic air conditioning.

To maintain the monolithic appearance of the wall, layers of dissimilar materials are usually grouped together on the same plane, which could equally well separate, space out, and expand from each other to form intermediate spaces with mixed climatic qualities in the way that the balcony, conservatory, pergola or bow window, for example, may have worked in the past. By expanding the layers that constitute the facade to create intermediate spaces between them, to make the in-between habitable, peeling the layers from each other, creating a habitable space between the watertightness and the thermal insulation, for example, the climatic richness of the interior spaces can be broadened, interior life can be diversified and the energy expenditure in the building can be reduced by only using air conditioning where it is really necessary.

The buildings that we have designed for the 67 hectare Taichung Central Park in Taiwan are a result of this dissociation of the usually single line of the building envelope into a multitude of layers, each one of which has a specific climatic property: for protection from rain, from heat, from wind, from noise, from intrusion or from sight. These different layers come together and diverge from each other to create habitable intermediate spaces, each one offering specific climatic qualities with its own mode of air conditioning, ventilation, and lighting.

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Gradual Intimacy Philippe Rahm</figcaption></figure>

Central Park is the urban attractor for a new 256 hectare district in the City of Taichung, Taiwan, built on the site of the old airport. The 67 hectare park has more than 10,000 trees and manages the rainfall runoff in the new urban district with retention basins that generate the park's topography. My team, Philippe Rahm architectes, in conjunction with Mosbach Paysagistes and Ricky Liu & Associates, won the international competition in 2011 and the park was officially completed and opened on December 6, 2020.

Taichung has a hot, humid, and polluted tropical climate. The ambition of the park is to offer cooler, drier, and less polluted places. The formal composition strategy of the masterplan is based on climate, cartography, and the design of the variations in heat, humidity and air pollution, which are superimposed to invent a multitude of microclimates and varied ambiances that generate aesthetic richness and a diversity of uses. The choice of location and species for the trees, the nature of the soils and the program are all guided by the climate. Thus, in places that are naturally coolest—due to their exposure to the cold north wind—we amplify the forest cover to create shade and thus double their freshness. The soils are rich in evaporative grass species with a high albedo to amplify the coolness. In locations farthest from sources of humidity, we amplify trees with floating roots to reduce their moisture content, and the soils are chosen for their particularly good drainage capacity. In areas far from roads, we increase the number of trees with hairy leaves to reduce air pollution. The program follows the climate: the less polluted areas are used for children's playgrounds, the drier areas are for sports, and the cooler areas are for various leisure programs.

<figure><img src="image_48.png" /></figure>
The park is composed by its vegetation, but it also hosts some thirty buildings including a visitor center, the gardeners' building, two cafés, ten leisure follies, multi-use houses, and facilities buildings.

We have built nine public toilets amidst these facilities—small buildings scattered throughout the park. The construction of these toilets proceeds from a dissociation of the layers of protection and perception. Each one slides in relation to the other, from the outside to the inside, creating a concentric gradation of limits, from the most public to the most private, from the most exposed to the most intimate, from the most open to the most closed. The concrete area is defined first as the shaping of the ground, flat and passable, distinguishing itself from the natural environment of earth and grass. Further inside, a second area is formed by a set of loudspeakers that play music inspired by the sound frequencies of water noises, acoustically covering the noise of the toilet water. A third area is then built vertically from a grid that brings a little privacy to the common areas of the toilets. The fourth area is that of artificial light for the evening and night, composed of vertical luminous mats. The fifth area is the roof zone that provides shelter from the rain. The sixth area, where the toilets themselves are located, is the most private zone. It is shaped by a second screen that completely blocks views without obstructing the passage of air. Each of these layers has its own construction system, its own independent load-bearing structure.

The whole composition acquires the heterogeneity of the materials, lines, thicknesses, and dimensions, and compositions a variety of spaces with as many climates. Each layer

slips in relation to the other, each architectural mission (walking on dry ground, being sheltered from view, seeing at night, being protected from rain, not being bothered by the noise of neighbors or one's own self) finds a specific, proper spatial incarnation.
The park is composed by its vegetation, but it also hosts some thirty buildings including a visitor center, the gardeners' building, two cafés, ten leisure follies, multi-use houses, and facilities buildings.

We have built nine public toilets amidst these facilities—small buildings scattered throughout the park. The construction of these toilets proceeds from a dissociation of the layers of protection and perception. Each one slides in relation to the other, from the outside to the inside, creating a concentric gradation of limits, from the most public to the most private, from the most exposed to the most intimate, from the most open to the most closed. The concrete area is defined first as the shaping of the ground, flat and passable, distinguishing itself from the natural environment of earth and grass. Further inside, a second area is formed by a set of loudspeakers that play music inspired by the sound frequencies of water noises, acoustically covering the noise of the toilet water. A third area is then built vertically from a grid that brings a little privacy to the common areas of the toilets. The fourth area is that of artificial light for the evening and night, composed of vertical luminous mats. The fifth area is the roof zone that provides shelter from the rain. The sixth area, where the toilets themselves are located, is the most private zone. It is shaped by a second screen that completely blocks views without obstructing the passage of air. Each of these layers has its own construction system, its own independent load-bearing structure.

The whole composition acquires the heterogeneity of the materials, lines, thicknesses, and dimensions, and compositions a variety of spaces with as many climates. Each layer

slips in relation to the other, each architectural mission (walking on dry ground, being sheltered from view, seeing at night, being protected from rain, not being bothered by the noise of neighbors or one's own self) finds a specific, proper spatial incarnation.
## UNDRESSING METHODOLOGIES

Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka

Louise Lemoine: We were initially very surprised to receive an invitation to take part in this seminar. In fact, we had a good laugh thinking about being considered the experts on cleaning ladies, mops, and buckets since our first film, *Koolhaas HouseLife*. (62) But being invited to talk about toilets was definitively a new step!

Then, obviously, once we dived into the subject, above all its social history, we were amazed to see how polysemic and interesting the issue was. We really thought that we should have explored the WC world much earlier! The issue is so closely related to what we have been doing for more than 10 years, i.e., making films that question the standard values of architectural representation, transgressing many taboo issues. Our films were aiming to introduce a “crack of reality” in the very polite rules that govern the genre of architecture films. We wanted to observe buildings as they are in their pure nudity. But the WC was probably the last step that we never really took. WCs are so primordial to our domestic economy and at the same time so absent from the public debate that they would be the perfect subject for us! So, the time has come!

Instead of talking about toilets and bathrooms in history in a very objective kind of way, let's talk about a film about toilets that we haven't made yet. Challenged by the title of the seminar, "Intimacy Exposed", we thought it would be appropriate to expose

our own intimacy, not physically, by undressing—the surprise effect wouldn't last enough for the duration of the lecture—but rather by exposing the intimacy of our working methodology. The idea is to start a sort of a working session on the issue of toilets with the audience, exposing and explaining how we would build a film around the topic.

We will start by creating a sort of map of the subject in all the ramifications of its meanings. We will draw a constellation of words, drifting through the multiplicity and diversity of the meanings of this single word, *TOILET*, in order to expand its possible echoes. This is the way we usually start working on a subject, so we will share the process with you to give you an idea about the film we could potentially make.

So, let's start this game, as we may call it: let's draft a script for a film that doesn't exist yet. Now I am drawing the first point, which is WC. That stands for *TOILETS*, but it also encompasses restrooms and bathrooms in a larger sense. I'm using the word WC because its imagery is much stronger than the larger spaces for cleansing that it can include. From this single word, we can stretch out a wide variety of connections, a little bit like Gaston Bachelard's work on the poetics of the four elements. So, let's start with the first big star in this constellation. From WC, we will create connections to *BODY*, *WATER* and *EVACUATION*, which is the first of our euphemisms for evoking the system dealing with human waste.

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>
## UNDRESSING METHODOLOGIES

Louise Lemoine and Ila Bêka

Louise Lemoine: We were initially very surprised to receive an invitation to take part in this seminar. In fact, we had a good laugh thinking about being considered the experts on cleaning ladies, mops, and buckets since our first film, *Koolhaas HouseLife*. (62) But being invited to talk about toilets was definitively a new step!

Then, obviously, once we dived into the subject, above all its social history, we were amazed to see how polysemic and interesting the issue was. We really thought that we should have explored the WC world much earlier! The issue is so closely related to what we have been doing for more than 10 years, i.e., making films that question the standard values of architectural representation, transgressing many taboo issues. Our films were aiming to introduce a “crack of reality” in the very polite rules that govern the genre of architecture films. We wanted to observe buildings as they are in their pure nudity. But the WC was probably the last step that we never really took. WCs are so primordial to our domestic economy and at the same time so absent from the public debate that they would be the perfect subject for us! So, the time has come!

Instead of talking about toilets and bathrooms in history in a very objective kind of way, let's talk about a film about toilets that we haven't made yet. Challenged by the title of the seminar, "Intimacy Exposed", we thought it would be appropriate to expose

our own intimacy, not physically, by undressing—the surprise effect wouldn't last enough for the duration of the lecture—but rather by exposing the intimacy of our working methodology. The idea is to start a sort of a working session on the issue of toilets with the audience, exposing and explaining how we would build a film around the topic.

We will start by creating a sort of map of the subject in all the ramifications of its meanings. We will draw a constellation of words, drifting through the multiplicity and diversity of the meanings of this single word, *TOILET*, in order to expand its possible echoes. This is the way we usually start working on a subject, so we will share the process with you to give you an idea about the film we could potentially make.

So, let's start this game, as we may call it: let's draft a script for a film that doesn't exist yet. Now I am drawing the first point, which is *WC*. That stands for *TOILETS*, but it also encompasses restrooms and bathrooms in a larger sense. I'm using the word *WC* because its imagery is much stronger than the larger spaces for cleansing that it can include. From this single word, we can stretch out a wide variety of connections, a little bit like Gaston Bachelard's work on the poetics of the four elements. So, let's start with the first big star in this constellation. From *WC*, we will create connections to *BODY*, *WATER* and *EVACUATION*, which is the first of our euphemisms for evoking the system dealing with human waste.

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>
Our first constellation puts four different elements, four different things, into tension: the physical reality—**BODY**—a natural element—**WATER**—a physical need—**EVACUATION**—and a space issue—**WC**—or the **toilet**. Put together, these four elements instantly create a sort of dynamic, close to fluid mechanics. Personally, we are always very interested in understanding the cultural associations, the psychological projections and the fantasies surrounding a specific space, and for sure, toilets have some of the deepest connotations.

Returning to our constellation, let's add to **WATER** all its "satellites", as we may call them. So, the first ramifications would be **CLEANNESS**, **CARE**, **HYGIENE** and **HEALTH**, which we locate here in the north-eastern section. Proceeding from here, a second ramification could be **WARMTH**, if we think of warm water, and thus the idea of **REST** and **COMFORT**, which leads us to **PROTECTION**, **REASSURANCE** and then **HEDONISM**. On the opposite side—because obviously it also works by contrast—you have: **VULNERABILITY**, then **ENCLOSURE**, **SECURITY**, and **SECRET**.

If we go back to our central dot **BODY**, as satellites in the first ring we will have: **NUDITY**, **PRIVACY**, and **PLEASURE**. Then, if we analyze the ramifications spreading out from **NUDITY**, it would be linked to **INTIMACY**, **GENITALS**, **SENSUALITY**, **EROTICISM**, **PLEASURE**, **DESIRE**, **SEXUALITY**, **INDECENCY**, **IMMORALITY**, **EXHIBITIONISM**, and **LUST**. Moving out from **PRIVACY**, a second ramification could be **DISCRETION**, **RESERVE**, **PRUDISHNESS**, **POLITENESS**, **GOOD MANNERS** and also **EMBARRASSMENT**, **SHAME**, **FEAR**, **MORALITY**, and **RELIGION**.

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /></figure>

This is obviously non-exhaustive. It is a kind of initial constellation of ideas that we had (as the film does not exist yet). However, after listening to all the insightful lectures today, we could extend all these ramifications much further.

If we go to the 'star' of **EVACUATION** and we build its satellites, as a first ring we could have **EXCREMENT**, **DIRT** and **TABOO**. A second ramification, spreading from **EXCREMENT**, could lead to **WASTE**, **RELIEF**, **SEWER**, **UNDERGROUND** and **HIDDEN**. If we take **DIRT**, we could add **STINK**, **DISGUST**, **REALISM**, **ANIMALITY**. And if we take **TABOO**, that connects to **TRANSGRESSION** and **UNSPEAKABLE**. And then, I could add **BAD**—in opposition to good—and then **SCANDAL**. And obviously that leads us to **HUMOR**.

Drawing the secondary connections, it gets very complex graphically, but it is also very efficient in revealing intimate relationships between physicality, space, and morality, because the map itself expresses very clearly how Western culture has built its conception of the body on the Christian sense of guilt and the idea of original sin.

So, building up some secondary connections between the underlining themes and their satellites, it is very interesting, for instance, to take **EXCREMENT** as a starting dot. From here we could create a connection between **WASTE**, **UNDERGROUND** and **DISGUST** or we could connect it to **ANIMALITY**, **ENCLOSURE**, and **UNSPEAKABLE**.
Our first constellation puts four different elements, four different things, into tension: the physical reality—**BODY**—a natural element—**WATER**—a physical need—**EVACUATION**—and a space issue—**WC**—or the **toilet**. Put together, these four elements instantly create a sort of dynamic, close to fluid mechanics. Personally, we are always very interested in understanding the cultural associations, the psychological projections and the fantasies surrounding a specific space, and for sure, toilets have some of the deepest connotations.

Returning to our constellation, let's add to **WATER** all its "satellites", as we may call them. So, the first ramifications would be **CLEANNESS**, **CARE**, **HYGIENE** and **HEALTH**, which we locate here in the north-eastern section. Proceeding from here, a second ramification could be **WARMTH**, if we think of warm water, and thus the idea of **REST** and **COMFORT**, which leads us to **PROTECTION**, **REASSURANCE** and then **HEDONISM**. On the opposite side—because obviously it also works by contrast—you have: **VULNERABILITY**, then **ENCLOSURE**, **SECURITY**, and **SECRET**.

If we go back to our central dot **BODY**, as satellites in the first ring we will have: **NUDITY**, **PRIVACY**, and **PLEASURE**. Then, if we analyze the ramifications spreading out from **NUDITY**, it would be linked to **INTIMACY**, **GENITALS**, **SENSUALITY**, **EROTICISM**, **PLEASURE**, **DESIRE**, **SEXUALITY**, **INDECENCY**, **IMMORALITY**, **EXHIBITIONISM**, and **LUST**. Moving out from **PRIVACY**, a second ramification could be **DISCRETION**, **RESERVE**, **PRUDISHNESS**, **POLITENESS**, **GOOD MANNERS** and also **EMBARRASSMENT**, **SHAME**, **FEAR**, **MORALITY**, and **RELIGION**.

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /></figure>

This is obviously non-exhaustive. It is a kind of initial constellation of ideas that we had (as the film does not exist yet). However, after listening to all the insightful lectures today, we could extend all these ramifications much further.

If we go to the 'star' of **EVACUATION** and we build its satellites, as a first ring we could have **EXCREMENT**, **DIRT** and **TABOO**. A second ramification, spreading from **EXCREMENT**, could lead to **WASTE**, **RELIEF**, **SEWER**, **UNDERGROUND** and **HIDDEN**. If we take **DIRT**, we could add **STINK**, **DISGUST**, **REALISM**, **ANIMALITY**. And if we take **TABOO**, that connects to **TRANSGRESSION** and **UNSPEAKABLE**. And then, I could add **BAD**—in opposition to good—and then **SCANDAL**. And obviously that leads us to **HUMOR**.

Drawing the secondary connections, it gets very complex graphically, but it is also very efficient in revealing intimate relationships between physicality, space, and morality, because the map itself expresses very clearly how Western culture has built its conception of the body on the Christian sense of guilt and the idea of original sin.

So, building up some secondary connections between the underlining themes and their satellites, it is very interesting, for instance, to take **EXCREMENT** as a starting dot. From here we could create a connection between **WASTE**, **UNDERGROUND** and **DISGUST** or we could connect it to **ANIMALITY**, **ENCLOSURE**, and **UNSPEAKABLE**.
On the other hand, if we take *HYGIENE*, we can build some secondary connections between *NUDITY*, *SECURITY*, and *FEAR*, or *DIRT*, *PRIVACY*, and *REALISM*. As you can see, each time we connect a physical notion to a spatial question and a moral value. If we take *PLEASURE*, for instance, it creates links between *GENITALS*, *TOILETS*, and *RELIGION*, which is pretty interesting. Or if we take *SEXUALITY*, we may create some connections between *EXCREMENT*, *SECRET* and *LUST*; or *HEALTH*, *SECURITY* and *TABOO*. Or if we take *RELIGION*, for instance, it creates connections with *PLEASURE*, *UNDERGROUND* and *IMMORALITY*; or *NUDITY*, *SECRET* and *SHAME*. Or let's take *HUMOR* as a starting point, which lets us make connections between *STINK*, *TOILETS* and *EMBARRASSMENT*, or we can have *GENITALS*, *SECRET* and *TRANSGRESSION*.
I could do a lot more, but I think you have got the idea. What we like is that you can clearly read that the various themes all include issues related to spatiality, physicality, moral values and emotions.

We can even see this drawing as a geographical map. In the north-east, we have what we could call the “body ecology” with *CLEANSING*, *HYGIENE*, *WATER*, etc. In the south-east, we have something more like the “animal body” with its needs and functions. In the north-west, we have the “social body” or what we could call “the ashamed body” (it sounds better in French: “*le corps honteux*”). Finally, in the south-west, we have the “released body”, or the desiring body.

So, let's say that through this thematic constellation which we have built here together, you can get an overview of the working methodology we use each time we start wor-

king on a film, or a space. If we have to deal with a specific architecture, we use this sort of thematic mapping before we start to build up the film. The idea has been to share with you, almost live, how we could start thinking about a film on this subject.

Ila Bêka: I would like to stress just one thing: as we make films, what we have just seen is obviously only the preparatory work, an equivalent to a script, which is something that disappears as soon as the film appears. What is the script in cinema, anyway? It is a sort of list of things that you have to do in order to make the film. So, you have Scene One, Scene Two, Scene Three, etc. Every time we are invited to talk about our films, at the end of the presentation, a lot of people ask us, “Do you write a script? How do you prepare your films? How do you prepare what you are going to film?” It is then that we show this kind of scripts. I imagine you can’t really build an idea of how the film will look from this. It is not very

rational nor pedagogical. Let's say it's more a sketch of ideas resulting from earlier discussion that Louise and I have on the topic, on the polysemy of its meaning, and from which we elaborate these thematic connections and tensions. This happens before actually going to the place we have decided to film. For example, for *Barbicania*,

<figure><img src="image_51.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /></figure>
On the other hand, if we take *HYGIENE*, we can build some secondary connections between *NUDITY*, *SECURITY*, and *FEAR*, or *DIRT*, *PRIVACY*, and *REALISM*. As you can see, each time we connect a physical notion to a spatial question and a moral value. If we take *PLEASURE*, for instance, it creates links between *GENITALS*, *TOILETS*, and *RELIGION*, which is pretty interesting. Or if we take *SEXUALITY*, we may create some connections between *EXCREMENT*, *SECRET* and *LUST*; or *HEALTH*, *SECURITY* and *TABOO*. Or if we take *RELIGION*, for instance, it creates connections with *PLEASURE*, *UNDERGROUND* and *IMMORALITY*; or *NUDITY*, *SECRET* and *SHAME*. Or let's take *HUMOR* as a starting point, which lets us make connections between *STINK*, *TOILETS* and *EMBARRASSMENT*, or we can have *GENITALS*, *SECRET* and *TRANSGRESSION*.
I could do a lot more, but I think you have got the idea. What we like is that you can clearly read that the various themes all include issues related to spatiality, physicality, moral values and emotions.

We can even see this drawing as a geographical map. In the north-east, we have what we could call the “body ecology” with *CLEANSING*, *HYGIENE*, *WATER*, etc. In the south-east, we have something more like the “animal body” with its needs and functions. In the north-west, we have the “social body” or what we could call “the ashamed body” (it sounds better in French: “*le corps honteux*”). Finally, in the south-west, we have the “released body”, or the desiring body.

So, let's say that through this thematic constellation which we have built here together, you can get an overview of the working methodology we use each time we start wor-

king on a film, or a space. If we have to deal with a specific architecture, we use this sort of thematic mapping before we start to build up the film. The idea has been to share with you, almost live, how we could start thinking about a film on this subject.

Ila Bêka: I would like to stress just one thing: as we make films, what we have just seen is obviously only the preparatory work, an equivalent to a script, which is something that disappears as soon as the film appears. What is the script in cinema, anyway? It is a sort of list of things that you have to do in order to make the film. So, you have Scene One, Scene Two, Scene Three, etc. Every time we are invited to talk about our films, at the end of the presentation, a lot of people ask us, “Do you write a script? How do you prepare your films? How do you prepare what you are going to film?” It is then that we show this kind of scripts. I imagine you can’t really build an idea of how the film will look from this. It is not very

rational nor pedagogical. Let's say it's more a sketch of ideas resulting from earlier discussion that Louise and I have on the topic, on the polysemy of its meaning, and from which we elaborate these thematic connections and tensions. This happens before actually going to the place we have decided to film. For example, for *Barbicania*,

<figure><img src="image_51.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_53.png" /></figure>

we made a very big script, before actually heading to the Barbican. How did it evolve then? We printed that big "graphic scenario", you might call it, and pinned it on the wall. It essentially serves as a thematic structure for us to guide the process of the film. We have worked in this way since our first film, *Koolhaas Housewife*. We draw this kind of fragmented script and at the end, the structure of the film very much resembles it. All our films are built as collections of fragments, little chapters that we call *fragments*. They are this way because this is the way we work: we don't have an order in mind when we start filming. We just find things. When we are filming, we are completely curious, attentive, looking for what is happening all around us. That's how we work.

For this particular conference, we have prepared this graphical script in a rather accelerated process. But since we have it now, we are ready to shoot the film! We only need to find the right place where we could make it. For more than 10 years now, we have worked—and are still working—on the architecture's body in a very organic and biological sense, so making a film about toilets makes complete sense!

I could say that my dream is to make a film in a very big tower, the tallest tower in the world, but only filming about how excrements are treated there: a film about the path of the excrements from the highest point down to the bottom... it would be fantastic!

After we produce the script, there is also a second step that I need to mention: the one in which we create relations with other images we have in mind, images from other films, paintings, books or even sounds. So we just pass from the script to its

references, watching other films on the same topic, everything that might inspire us when we are making these kinds of films. We would like to list some extracts from four films that you probably all know, because they are very famous. All the same, they are still very interesting to revisit bearing in mind that we are dealing with the issue of toilets.

Blake Edwards, *The Party*, (1968)

Louis Buñuel, *Le fantôme de la liberté*, (1974)

Peter Greenaway, *Inside room: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire*, (1985)

Danny Boyle, *Trainspotting*, (1996)

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_55.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_53.png" /></figure>

we made a very big script, before actually heading to the Barbican. How did it evolve then? We printed that big "graphic scenario", you might call it, and pinned it on the wall. It essentially serves as a thematic structure for us to guide the process of the film. We have worked in this way since our first film, *Koolhaas Housewife*. We draw this kind of fragmented script and at the end, the structure of the film very much resembles it. All our films are built as collections of fragments, little chapters that we call *fragments*. They are this way because this is the way we work: we don't have an order in mind when we start filming. We just find things. When we are filming, we are completely curious, attentive, looking for what is happening all around us. That's how we work.

For this particular conference, we have prepared this graphical script in a rather accelerated process. But since we have it now, we are ready to shoot the film! We only need to find the right place where we could make it. For more than 10 years now, we have worked—and are still working—on the architecture's body in a very organic and biological sense, so making a film about toilets makes complete sense!

I could say that my dream is to make a film in a very big tower, the tallest tower in the world, but only filming about how excrements are treated there: a film about the path of the excrements from the highest point down to the bottom... it would be fantastic! After we produce the script, there is also a second step that I need to mention: the one in which we create relations with other images we have in mind, images from other films, paintings, books or even sounds. So we just pass from the script to its

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_55.png" /></figure>

references, watching other films on the same topic, everything that might inspire us when we are making these kinds of films. We would like to list some extracts from four films that you probably all know, because they are very famous. All the same, they are still very interesting to revisit bearing in mind that we are dealing with the issue of toilets.

Blake Edwards, *The Party*, (1968)

Louis Buñuel, *Le fantôme de la liberté*, (1974)

Peter Greenaway, *Inside room: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire*, (1985)

Danny Boyle, *Trainspotting*, (1996)
<figure><img src="image_56.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_57.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_58.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_59.png" /></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_56.png" /></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_65.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_64.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_65.png" /></figure>
1925

EXPO.
ARTS. DÉCO.

<figure><img src="image_66.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_67.png" /></figure>
1925

EXPO.
ARTS. DÉCO.

<figure><img src="image_66.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_67.png" /></figure>
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<figure><img src="image_71.png" /></figure>

T. Vespasian et zénonie arcuïn, e lapsi de Tiburtino cibacum ambientum. X. Directic. Cloacae Forum Benianum versus. G. Lap. des Albari. H. Lapides Tiburtini arcuïn. Cloacæ ambientium transe Pulterium litus, qualibet dictanna quæ est inter E. et H. interjectis, et interdibibus ex empleo. quod notatur lit. I, roborat, ut videre eſt, lit. a, secnono C. bed Fornix Cloacæ tre. plen. quaterne subacta est Pulterius. L. Sectio Cloacæ founded quæ directionem. M. Tenere egypia ab aquæ Cloacæ. Tres cias.

<figure><img src="image_72.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_71.png" /></figure>

T. Vespasian et zetstone arcuim, et lapide Tiburtino clociacam ambientum. F. Directicæ Cloacæ Forum Benianum versus G. Lapideæ Albani. H. Lapides Tiburtini arcuim. Cloacæ ambientium transe Pulterium litus, qualibet dictanna quæ est inter E. et N. interjectis, et interrodibus ex empleo. quod notatur lit. V, roborat, ut videre eſt, lit. A, secnonum C. bed Fornix Cloacæ trans plex quatuor subacta, ſt Pulterius. L. Secticæ Cloacæ foundalque directionem. M. Tenere egyptra ab aquæ Cloacæ. Tres cœleste.

<figure><img src="image_72.png" /></figure>
एक प्रेम कथा

STREAM

<figure><img src="image_73.png" /></figure>

LINES

<figure><img src="image_74.png" /></figure>
एक प्रेम कथा

STREAM

<figure><img src="image_73.png" /></figure>

LINES

<figure><img src="image_74.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_75.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_76.png" /></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_80.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_79.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_80.png" /></figure>
INSIDE
ROOMS

26 bathrooms

London & Oxfordshire

1985

<figure><img src="image_81.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4.6. Photograph of the Criterion Closet for Crane Co., c. 1936, designed by Henry Dreyfuss (American, 1904–1972). Henry Dreyfuss Collection, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Henry Dreyfuss, 1972.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_82.png" /></figure>
INSIDE
ROOMS

26 bathrooms

London & Oxfordshire

1985

<figure><img src="image_81.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4.6. Photograph of the Criterion Closet for Crane Co., c. 1936, designed by Henry Dreyfuss (American, 1904–1972). Henry Dreyfuss Collection, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Henry Dreyfuss, 1972.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_82.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_83.png" /></figure>

Philip K. Dick

Doublingday Science

<figure><img src="image_84.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_85.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_83.png" /></figure>

Philip K. Dick

Doublingday Science

<figure><img src="image_84.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_85.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_86.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_87.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_86.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_87.png" /></figure>
# THE BLIND MAN

## The Richard Mutt Case

They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit.

Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited.

What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt's fountain?—

1. Some contended it was immoral, vulgar.

2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.

Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows.

Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.

As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.

### "Buddha of the Bathroom"

I suppose monkeys hated to lose their tail. Necessary, useful and an ornament, monkey imagination could not stretch to a tailless existence (and frankly, do you see the biological beauty of our loss of them?), yet now that we are used to it, we get on pretty well without them. But evolution is not pleasing to the monkey race; "there is a death in every change" and we monkeys do not love death as we should. We are like those philosophers whom Dante placed in his Inferno with their heads set the wrong way on their shoulders. We walk forward looking backward, each with more of his predecessors' personality than his own. Our eyes are not ours.

The ideas that our ancestors have joined together let no man put asunder! In La Dissociation des Idees, Remy de Gourmont, quietly analytic, shows how sacred is the marriage of ideas. At least one charm-

ing thing about our human institution is that although a man marry he can never be only a husband. Besides being a money-making device and the one man that one woman can sleep with in legal purity without sin he may even be as well some other woman's very personification of her abstract idea. Sin, while to his employees he is nothing but their "Boss," to his children only their "Father," and to himself certainly something more complex.

But with objects and ideas it is different. Recently we have had a chance to observe their meticulous monogamy.

When the jurors of The Society of Independent Artists fairly rushed to remove the bit of sculpture called the Fountain sent in by Richard Mutt, because the object was irrevocably associated in their atavistic minds with a certain natural function of a secretive sort. Yet to any "innocent" eye

<figure><img src="image_88.png" /></figure>
# THE BLIND MAN

## The Richard Mutt Case

They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit.

Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited.

What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt's fountain?—

1. Some contended it was immoral, vulgar.

2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.

Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows.

Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.

As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.

### "Buddha of the Bathroom"

I suppose monkeys hated to lose their tail. Necessary, useful and an ornament, monkey imagination could not stretch to a tailless existence (and frankly, do you see the biological beauty of our loss of them?), yet now that we are used to it, we get on pretty well without them. But evolution is not pleasing to the monkey race; "there is a death in every change" and we monkeys do not love death as we should. We are like those philosophers whom Dante placed in his Inferno with their heads set the wrong way on their shoulders. We walk forward looking backward, each with more of his predecessors' personality than his own. Our eyes are not ours.

The ideas that our ancestors have joined together let no man put asunder! In La Dissociation des Idees, Remy de Gourmont, quietly analytic, shows how sacred is the marriage of ideas. At least one charm-

ing thing about our human institution is that although a man marry he can never be only a husband. Besides being a money-making device and the one man that one woman can sleep with in legal purity without sin he may even be as well some other woman's very personification of her abstract idea. Sin, while to his employees he is nothing but their "Boss," to his children only their "Father," and to himself certainly something more complex.

But with objects and ideas it is different. Recently we have had a chance to observe their meticulous monogamy.

When the jurors of The Society of Independent Artists fairly rushed to remove the bit of sculpture called the Fountain sent in by Richard Mutt, because the object was irrevocably associated in their atavistic minds with a certain natural function of a secretive sort. Yet to any "innocent" eye

<figure><img src="image_88.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_89.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_90.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_91.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_89.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_90.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_91.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_92.png" /></figure>

Où sont les toilettes, s'il vous plaît ?

<figure><img src="image_93.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_92.png" /></figure>

Où sont les toilettes, s'il vous plaît ?

<figure><img src="image_93.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_94.png" /></figure>

YOUR CHILD'S TENDER SKIN REQUIRES
GREATER SOFTNESS AND DAILY PROTECTION
OF
LUXURY TEXTURE

MANY mothers faithfully "follow
the book" on child feeding and care—
completely unaware of the daily
ey run in exposing a child's tender
ordinary, harsh toilet tissue!

It be this sort of mother! Give your
the comfort, security and essential
protection of LUXURY TEXTURE
issue. Linen-soft, this safe, fine tissue
completely and without irrita-

tion to the most sensitive skin. Yet Luxury
Texture is firm, strong, 30% more absorb-
ent. And it lasts 3 to 5 days longer, because
fewer sheets are necessary.

Always keep Luxury Texture in your bath-
room. Your child needs its greater comfort
and protection and your whole family will
welcome it, too. Scott Paper Company,
Chester, Pennsylvania, also makers of
Waldorf and ScotTowels for home use.

EXCEPT FOR
ONE THING
—HER
BATHROOM
PAPER IS
TERRIBLE

<figure><img src="image_95.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_96.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_97.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_94.png" /></figure>

YOUR CHILD'S TENDER SKIN REQUIRES
GREATER SOFTNESS AND DAILY PROTECTION
OF
LUXURY TEXTURE

MANY mothers faithfully "follow
the book" on child feeding and care—
completely unaware of the daily
ey run in exposing a child's tender
ordinary, harsh toilet tissue!

It be this sort of mother! Give your
the comfort, security and essential
protection of LUXURY TEXTURE
issue. Linen-soft, this safe, fine tissue
completely and without irrita-

tion to the most sensitive skin. Yet Luxury
Texture is firm, strong, 30% more absorb-
ent. And it lasts 3 to 5 days longer, because
fewer sheets are necessary.

Always keep Luxury Texture in your bath-
room. Your child needs its greater comfort
and protection and your whole family will
welcome it, too. Scott Paper Company,
Chester, Pennsylvania, also makers of
Waldorf and ScotTowels for home use.

EXCEPT FOR
ONE THING
—HER
BATHROOM
PAPER IS
TERRIBLE

<figure><img src="image_95.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_96.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_97.png" /></figure>
In the context of an incipient realization by society that hygienic ideals were a necessity, the bathroom appeared as the most important contribution to the 20th century domestic program. (63) Oblivious to an ideal spatial configuration of the bathroom, architects and designers saw the bathroom as the prelude to the modernization of the home. They saw it as a testing ground, and it influenced their conception of the rest of the rooms in the house, allowing avant-garde architects to explore all the possibilities that would lead to the standardization of the bathroom. (64)

In many of Le Corbusier's works, the space for hygiene is a latent element in the operation of the home which, moreover, occupied a notable position inside the dwelling. The location of the sanitary core thus generated a link between the other domestic spaces of the house, in some cases encouraging ambiguity between their edges. Le Corbusier's experimentation with bathroom design began with a modest example in *L'Esprit Nouveau*. This led him to investigate the room in his purist villas of the 1920s, where relaxation and hedonistic care of the body and life was shared happily by the family and their social environment, as it had been in ancient times.

From a transversal perspective of Le Corbusier's architectural work, we shall look at various bathrooms in 20th century houses in independent sections, focusing on their spatial impact on the overall distribution of the domestic program. In some cases, they are compared with contemporary work by other architects such as Eileen Gray,

63 María Carreiro and Cándido López, *La casa: piezas, ensambles y estrategias* (Málaga: Recolectores Urbanos, 2016), 141. 64 Ellen Lupton, Abbott Miller, *El cuarto de baño, la cocina y la estética de los desperdicios: Procesos de eliminación* (Madrid: Celeste, 1995), 25-38.
In the context of an incipient realization by society that hygienic ideals were a necessity, the bathroom appeared as the most important contribution to the 20th century domestic program. (63) Oblivious to an ideal spatial configuration of the bathroom, architects and designers saw the bathroom as the prelude to the modernization of the home. They saw it as a testing ground, and it influenced their conception of the rest of the rooms in the house, allowing avant-garde architects to explore all the possibilities that would lead to the standardization of the bathroom. (64)

In many of Le Corbusier's works, the space for hygiene is a latent element in the operation of the home which, moreover, occupied a notable position inside the dwelling. The location of the sanitary core thus generated a link between the other domestic spaces of the house, in some cases encouraging ambiguity between their edges. Le Corbusier's experimentation with bathroom design began with a modest example in *L'Esprit Nouveau*. This led him to investigate the room in his purist villas of the 1920s, where relaxation and hedonistic care of the body and life was shared happily by the family and their social environment, as it had been in ancient times.

From a transversal perspective of Le Corbusier's architectural work, we shall look at various bathrooms in 20th century houses in independent sections, focusing on their spatial impact on the overall distribution of the domestic program. In some cases, they are compared with contemporary work by other architects such as Eileen Gray,

<footnote n="63">63 María Carreiro and Cándido López, *La casa: piezas, ensambles y estrategias* (Málaga: Recolectores Urbanos, 2016), 141. 64 Ellen Lupton, Abbott Miller, *El cuarto de baño, la cocina y la estética de los desperdicios: Procesos de eliminación* (Madrid: Celeste, 1995), 25-38.</footnote>
Pierre Charreau, and Auguste Perret, with whom Le Corbusier felt an degree of affinity or closeness. In this way, we shall see how the domestic machine, apparently relegated to the functional sphere, was in fact the precursor of the home layout.

The driving force behind this study, the involvement of the wet areas in the distribution of Le Corbusier's projects, is presented chronologically, with a more in-depth look at the repercussion of the bathrooms for the rest of the rooms in the house, the itineraries generated through them, and the ambiguity produced by their boundaries in the functions of the sanitary appliances.

## L'Esprit Nouveau

At the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925), Le Corbusier exhibited a full-scale prototype of a pavilion that he was promoting in the 1920s as a model of the modern home. No characteristic industrialized objects from an ordinary house were displayed in this pavilion, since Le Corbusier's intention was to avoid any reference to the personalized belongings of affluent houses. (65) Consequently, the sanitary appliances—mechanized by industry—"are exhibited as radiant works of art" (66) scattered through the bathroom.

65 Willy Boesiger, Le Corbusier, Oscar Stonorov, *Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret : œuvre complète*, vol. 1, 1910-1929 (Zurich: Les Éditions d'Architecture, 1937), 89.
66 "The Manual of the Dwelling", *Towards a New Architecture* (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), 122-123.

<figure><img src="image_98.png" /></figure>

In this L'Immueble Villa prototype, the hygiene devices and the gymnastics room jointly governed the operation of the bathroom for the benefit of the bodily care of its users. The bathroom space thus seems bigger since these hygiene devices rush towards the boundaries of the room, permitting a greater spatial ambiguity in the rest of the room. This way of distributing the toilet towards the corners is reminiscent of a resource used by Adolf Loos in his house in Vienna (1903), which set a central space in the living room where all the room's belongings were attached, leaving a larger area in the center of the house to be perceived as a stage, freely available for interpretation. Similarly, the bathroom in the L'Esprit Nouveau pavilion was enriched by the large centralized space left by the sanitary appliances, permitting a multitude of activities related to physical training, personal hygiene, or even completely unrelated to body care, given that there would be no limits to the functional concept of this space.

In addition to all this, there was the lack of doors to enclose the contents of the bathroom, leaving the sanitary appliances in full view to the astonished gaze of the public, making them an essential part of the exhibition. To underscore this spatial continuity, Le Corbusier exhibited the bidet in a circulation zone, sheltered by the curved partition but without any door to hide its shape. It seemed to want to be part of the second floor distributor, acting as just another item in the space.

<figure><img src="image_99.png" /></figure>
Pierre Charreau, and Auguste Perret, with whom Le Corbusier felt an degree of affinity or closeness. In this way, we shall see how the domestic machine, apparently relegated to the functional sphere, was in fact the precursor of the home layout.

The driving force behind this study, the involvement of the wet areas in the distribution of Le Corbusier's projects, is presented chronologically, with a more in-depth look at the repercussion of the bathrooms for the rest of the rooms in the house, the itineraries generated through them, and the ambiguity produced by their boundaries in the functions of the sanitary appliances.

## L'Esprit Nouveau

At the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925), Le Corbusier exhibited a full-scale prototype of a pavilion that he was promoting in the 1920s as a model of the modern home. No characteristic industrialized objects from an ordinary house were displayed in this pavilion, since Le Corbusier's intention was to avoid any reference to the personalized belongings of affluent houses. (65) Consequently, the sanitary appliances—mechanized by industry—"are exhibited as radiant works of art" (66) scattered through the bathroom.

65 Willy Boesiger, Le Corbusier, Oscar Stonorov, *Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret : œuvre complète*, vol. 1, 1910-1929 (Zurich: Les Éditions d'Architecture, 1937), 89. 66 "The Manual of the Dwelling", *Towards a New Architecture* (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), 122-123.

<figure><img src="image_98.png" /></figure>

In this L'Immueble Villa prototype, the hygiene devices and the gymnastics room jointly governed the operation of the bathroom for the benefit of the bodily care of its users. The bathroom space thus seems bigger since these hygiene devices rush towards the boundaries of the room, permitting a greater spatial ambiguity in the rest of the room. This way of distributing the toilet towards the corners is reminiscent of a resource used by Adolf Loos in his house in Vienna (1903), which set a central space in the living room where all the room's belongings were attached, leaving a larger area in the center of the house to be perceived as a stage, freely available for interpretation. Similarly, the bathroom in the L'Esprit Nouveau pavilion was enriched by the large centralized space left by the sanitary appliances, permitting a multitude of activities related to physical training, personal hygiene, or even completely unrelated to body care, given that there would be no limits to the functional concept of this space.

In addition to all this, there was the lack of doors to enclose the contents of the bathroom, leaving the sanitary appliances in full view to the astonished gaze of the public, making them an essential part of the exhibition. To underscore this spatial continuity, Le Corbusier exhibited the bidet in a circulation zone, sheltered by the curved partition but without any door to hide its shape. It seemed to want to be part of the second floor distributor, acting as just another item in the space.

<figure><img src="image_99.png" /></figure>
The L'Esprit Nouveau pavilion showed more clearly than ever before a bathroom fully incorporated into the private space of the master bedroom. Not only that, but it also allowed Le Corbusier to display his more personal nature and his more rational thinking about the construction of the house, exalting the ordinary objects of the everyday lives of the standard man, which sparked the interest of several entrepreneur clients.

## Villa E-1027

The various phases that led designer Eileen Gray to build Villa E-1027 spanned the five years between 1924 and 1929. This home in Cap Martin, a village in the Maritime Alps of Nice, left Le Corbusier in awe, not only of the meticulous design of the interiors and exteriors as of the furnishings that she used.

Jean Badovici, Eileen Gray's partner at the time, encouraged the famous Parisian designer to dabble in the world of architecture by building this house. The French waterfront dwelling, like Le Corbusier's 1925 Decorative Arts pavilion, was an "intensely personal experiment in the progressive spirit of the Modern Movement." (67) Both were designed from the authors' deepest intimacy, revealing their personal character and manifesting their testaments as, "the legacy of their beliefs and convictions". (68) However, while Le Corbusier prioritized standardized objects

67 David Lluís López, "Eileen Gray: la emancipación femenina en la arquitectura moderna," *Dossiers Féministes*, no. 21 (Castelló: Universitat Jaume 1, 2016), 148. 68 Sung-Taeg Nam, "Los objetos sanitarios en Le Corbusier: La libertad dispositiva y la exposición radical en los años 20," *RA. Revista de Arquitectura*, no. 15 (Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2013), 93.

over personalized designs, Eileen Gray chose to design the furnishings for her home herself. Visually, the counterpoint to the furniture decoration was not only obvious on the "piano nobile", but also in the sanitary fixtures in the bathrooms. In the *L'Esprit Nouveau* pavilion, Le Corbusier resorted to purely industrialized white objects, subordinating form to function. In contrast, Eileen Gray was more careful and concerned with the shape of her sanitary appliances. These "machines" were not strictly pure, with different shades of colors and tiles used on walls of the room, which gave it more spatial warmth.

Indeed, Eileen Gray seems to have been a pioneer in the field of bathroom decoration. She employed ceramic tiles in different colors, and even invented an orange toilet seat for a context where white was still considered necessary to maintain an image of hygienic cleanliness. (69) This discrete gesture in her bathrooms exploded in the 1950s and 60s, raising the decoration of those rooms to the highest level. During those years, "the bathroom stopped being regarded as a machine room, and became another room in the house, where the sanitary ware became another piece of furniture in a totally different environment". (70)

69 Le Corbusier, "The Manual of the Dwelling," *Towards a New Architecture* (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), 122-123. 70 Justo García Navarro, Eduardo de la Peña Pareja, Fundación Cultural COAM, *El cuarto de baño en la vivienda urbana* (Madrid: Fundación Cultural COAM, 1998), 148.
The L'Esprit Nouveau pavilion showed more clearly than ever before a bathroom fully incorporated into the private space of the master bedroom. Not only that, but it also allowed Le Corbusier to display his more personal nature and his more rational thinking about the construction of the house, exalting the ordinary objects of the everyday lives of the standard man, which sparked the interest of several entrepreneur clients.

## Villa E-1027

The various phases that led designer Eileen Gray to build Villa E-1027 spanned the five years between 1924 and 1929. This home in Cap Martin, a village in the Maritime Alps of Nice, left Le Corbusier in awe, not only of the meticulous design of the interiors and exteriors as of the furnishings that she used.

Jean Badovici, Eileen Gray's partner at the time, encouraged the famous Parisian designer to dabble in the world of architecture by building this house. The French waterfront dwelling, like Le Corbusier's 1925 Decorative Arts pavilion, was an "intensely personal experiment in the progressive spirit of the Modern Movement." (67) Both were designed from the authors' deepest intimacy, revealing their personal character and manifesting their testaments as, "the legacy of their beliefs and convictions". (68) However, while Le Corbusier prioritized standardized objects

67 David Lluís López, "Eileen Gray: la emancipación femenina en la arquitectura moderna," *Dossiers Féministes*, no. 21 (Castelló: Universitat Jaume 1, 2016), 148. 68 Sung-Taeg Nam, "Los objetos sanitarios en Le Corbusier: La libertad dispositiva y la exposición radical en los años 20," *RA. Revista de Arquitectura*, no. 15 (Chile: Universidad de Chile, 2013), 93.

over personalized designs, Eileen Gray chose to design the furnishings for her home herself. Visually, the counterpoint to the furniture decoration was not only obvious on the "piano nobile", but also in the sanitary fixtures in the bathrooms. In the *L'Esprit Nouveau* pavilion, Le Corbusier resorted to purely industrialized white objects, subordinating form to function. In contrast, Eileen Gray was more careful and concerned with the shape of her sanitary appliances. These "machines" were not strictly pure, with different shades of colors and tiles used on walls of the room, which gave it more spatial warmth.

Indeed, Eileen Gray seems to have been a pioneer in the field of bathroom decoration. She employed ceramic tiles in different colors, and even invented an orange toilet seat for a context where white was still considered necessary to maintain an image of hygienic cleanliness. (69) This discrete gesture in her bathrooms exploded in the 1950s and 60s, raising the decoration of those rooms to the highest level. During those years, "the bathroom stopped being regarded as a machine room, and became another room in the house, where the sanitary ware became another piece of furniture in a totally different environment". (70)

69 Le Corbusier, "The Manual of the Dwelling," *Towards a New Architecture* (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), 122-123. 70 Justo García Navarro, Eduardo de la Peña Pareja, Fundación Cultural COAM, *El cuarto de baño en la vivienda urbana* (Madrid: Fundación Cultural COAM, 1998), 148.
With a previously defined project under his arm, Le Corbusier found a plot of land on the edge of Lake Leman which seemed to be just waiting for the arrival of his parents' house. (71) In this project (late 1924), the bathroom is relegated to the end of the house, seen from the dining room as a background perspective. The washbasin became the protagonist of the scene, showing Le Corbusier's clear intention to clearly focus on "secondary" objects. (72) Alongside these sanitary fixtures, Le Corbusier added a dressing room at the end of the floor and two doors that connected the laundry room to the hygienic space of the house through a closet. This simple gesture permitted a ring-like circulation through all the rooms. As Josep Quetglas Riusech explains in "Cómo se construye una casita," "The ring is continuous: hall, living room, bedroom, toilet, closet, laundry room, kitchen, hall [...] There is a correlation between all the rooms, which follow each other hand-in-hand, like Matisse's circles of dancers". (73)

In the light of this connection, we can sense that there is a pre-established rhythm in the project design, influenced by the way the house was inhabited: the mother wakes up in her bedroom, does her personal hygiene and continues her route to the wardrobe, where she gets dressed. She then continues her journey to the laundry area to

71 Le Corbusier, *Une Petite Maison 1923* (Buenos Aires: Infinito, 2005), 11. 72 Álvaro Antón Torres and Luis Martínez Santa-María, *WC. Algunos casos de estudio*, (Madrid: Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, 2018), 39. 73 Josep Quetglas Riusech, "Cómo se construye una casita", *Le Corbusier, mise au point* (Valencia: General de Ediciones de la Arquitectura, 2012), 203.

<figure><img src="image_100.png" /></figure>

leave her clothes. She turns right and enters the kitchen. There, like every morning, she makes breakfast, which she would then eat in the dining room.

It therefore seems reasonable to claim that the concatenation of small pieces with different roles, linked by a spatial continuity, permits a more versatile operation of the home. (74) Precisely in these rooms of the house, there is no intentional unity of different activities at the same time and the same place, but rather a breakdown of the functions into small precincts, interlinked for better fluidity. In addition, the spatial relationship created between the living room and the bathroom is enriched by the visual continuity through the window and the window sill, which integrate toilet, sink, and bathtub into the space as just additional objects in the room.

Finally, the ceramic tiling for the servants' areas in this house also stands out. It seems that Le Corbusier preferred not to draw it, and therefore not to build it in the realm of the bathroom, where the floor from the rest of the rooms enters following the longitudinal direction of the window sill. The sanitary devices are thus more tightly integrated with the shared rooms of the house, so it makes sense to think that the barriers between the served and the server spaces are increasingly blurred in order to improve the practicality of the house. (75)

74 Pere Fuertes and Xavier Monteys, *Casa collage: Un ensayo sobre la arquitectura de la casa* (Barcelona: G. Gilí, 2007), 52. 75 Ignacio Paricio Ansuategui and Xavier Sust, *La vivienda contemporánea: programa y tecnología* (Barcelona: ITEC, 1998).

<figure><img src="image_101.png" /></figure>
With a previously defined project under his arm, Le Corbusier found a plot of land on the edge of Lake Leman which seemed to be just waiting for the arrival of his parents' house. (71) In this project (late 1924), the bathroom is relegated to the end of the house, seen from the dining room as a background perspective. The washbasin became the protagonist of the scene, showing Le Corbusier's clear intention to clearly focus on "secondary" objects. (72) Alongside these sanitary fixtures, Le Corbusier added a dressing room at the end of the floor and two doors that connected the laundry room to the hygienic space of the house through a closet. This simple gesture permitted a ring-like circulation through all the rooms. As Josep Quetglas Riusech explains in "Cómo se construye una casita," "The ring is continuous: hall, living room, bedroom, toilet, closet, laundry room, kitchen, hall [...] There is a correlation between all the rooms, which follow each other hand-in-hand, like Matisse's circles of dancers". (73)

In the light of this connection, we can sense that there is a pre-established rhythm in the project design, influenced by the way the house was inhabited: the mother wakes up in her bedroom, does her personal hygiene and continues her route to the wardrobe, where she gets dressed. She then continues her journey to the laundry area to

71 Le Corbusier, *Une Petite Maison 1923* (Buenos Aires: Infinito, 2005), 11. 72 Álvaro Antón Torres and Luis Martínez Santa-María, *WC. Algunos casos de estudio*, (Madrid: Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, 2018), 39. 73 Josep Quetglas Riusech, "Cómo se construye una casita", *Le Corbusier, mise au point* (Valencia: General de Ediciones de la Arquitectura, 2012), 203.

<figure><img src="image_100.png" /></figure>

leave her clothes. She turns right and enters the kitchen. There, like every morning, she makes breakfast, which she would then eat in the dining room.

It therefore seems reasonable to claim that the concatenation of small pieces with different roles, linked by a spatial continuity, permits a more versatile operation of the home. (74) Precisely in these rooms of the house, there is no intentional unity of different activities at the same time and the same place, but rather a breakdown of the functions into small precincts, interlinked for better fluidity. In addition, the spatial relationship created between the living room and the bathroom is enriched by the visual continuity through the window and the window sill, which integrate toilet, sink, and bathtub into the space as just additional objects in the room.

Finally, the ceramic tiling for the servants' areas in this house also stands out. It seems that Le Corbusier preferred not to draw it, and therefore not to build it in the realm of the bathroom, where the floor from the rest of the rooms enters following the longitudinal direction of the window sill. The sanitary devices are thus more tightly integrated with the shared rooms of the house, so it makes sense to think that the barriers between the served and the server spaces are increasingly blurred in order to improve the practicality of the house. (75)

74 Pere Fuertes and Xavier Monteys, *Casa collage: Un ensayo sobre la arquitectura de la casa* (Barcelona: G. Gilí, 2007), 52. 75 Ignacio Paricio Ansuategui and Xavier Sust, *La vivienda contemporánea: programa y tecnología* (Barcelona: ITEC, 1998).

<figure><img src="image_101.png" /></figure>
According to Tim Benton, one of the first draft designs for Villa Meyer explores the interior layout with the same degree of freedom and complexity as the free plan. It is drawn with the fine definition that could be expected of a definitive project. Le Corbusier submitted this version, dated April 21, 1926, to a much more organic spatial subdivision, independent of any compositional modulation that might regenerate the connection between the different uses. On the second floor of this version, the Meyer bathroom is aligned along the front wall next to the nanny's small washroom and the son's bathroom. Over two-thirds of the house frontage is thus dominated explicitly by the sanitary devices, in a continuous, uniform interpretation of the "main" rooms of the house. A long window spans both the "noble" and the service rooms of the house, without any kind of distinction. (76)

The shape of the Meyer bathroom, connected to the master bedroom, is dilated by extending the sanitary fixtures beyond their profile. The bathtub (77) is pushed diagonally towards the enveloping wall, reshaping the boundaries of the bathroom and therefore of Mme Meyer's bedroom as well. The pivoting shape of this partition, described by Le Corbusier as a "grand piano", produces a continuous flow from the entrance to the apartment that guides and accompanies visitors as they walk in. Although this wall is depicted as a solid element in the floor plan of the April

76 Raúl Castellanos Gómez, *Plan Poché* (Barcelona: Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, 2012), 250-251. 77 A bath which, when turned diagonally, generates a spatial revolution, not only of the sanitary room of the rest of the space as well. Sung-Taeg Nam, "Los objetos sanitarios en Le Corbusier: La libertad dispositiva y la exposición radical en los años 20," *RA. Revista de Arquitectura*, no. 15, 2013, 93.

78 María Candela Suárez, "Las villas Meyer y Hutheesing-Shodhan de Le Corbusier," (Barcelona: Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, 2007), 68. 79 Fuertes and Monteys, *Casa collage*, 34-36.

<figure><img src="image_102.png" /></figure>

21 version, in the interior perspective of the bedroom we see that the wall does not touch the ceiling, with the two pieces merging spatially.

In contrast, the following version dated June 11, 1926 merges the rooms for the nanny and the baby into a single unit. (78) The bathroom acts as a link between the child's bedroom, the playroom, and the nanny's bedroom. They are positioned in the center of the apartment, permitting the spatial continuity of the three pieces that merge in the bathroom.

There are no limits to the use of these objects, since the concatenation of the playroom, the bathroom, and the child's bedroom gives rise to endless activities and fun games that sometimes only children are able to invent.

"Children are masters of the 'misuse' of the widest variety of things they can play with, and sometimes they naively bring out the "alter ego" of many objects and places in the house. Children teach us the ambiguity of many things by daring to use them in a different way [...] They barge into domestic architecture in a modern way and provide a different perspective on the house." (79)

The wild imagination of Meyer's son was thus able to evoke a fun game in the actual bathtub, sailing across the rough seas on a tiny boat.

<figure><img src="image_103.png" /></figure>
According to Tim Benton, one of the first draft designs for Villa Meyer explores the interior layout with the same degree of freedom and complexity as the free plan. It is drawn with the fine definition that could be expected of a definitive project. Le Corbusier submitted this version, dated April 21, 1926, to a much more organic spatial subdivision, independent of any compositional modulation that might regenerate the connection between the different uses. On the second floor of this version, the Meyer bathroom is aligned along the front wall next to the nanny's small washroom and the son's bathroom. Over two-thirds of the house frontage is thus dominated explicitly by the sanitary devices, in a continuous, uniform interpretation of the "main" rooms of the house. A long window spans both the "noble" and the service rooms of the house, without any kind of distinction. (76)

The shape of the Meyer bathroom, connected to the master bedroom, is dilated by extending the sanitary fixtures beyond their profile. The bathtub (77) is pushed diagonally towards the enveloping wall, reshaping the boundaries of the bathroom and therefore of Mme Meyer's bedroom as well. The pivoting shape of this partition, described by Le Corbusier as a "grand piano", produces a continuous flow from the entrance to the apartment that guides and accompanies visitors as they walk in. Although this wall is depicted as a solid element in the floor plan of the April

76 Raúl Castellanos Gómez, *Plan Poché* (Barcelona: Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, 2012), 250-251. 77 A bath which, when turned diagonally, generates a spatial revolution, not only of the sanitary room of the rest of the space as well. Sung-Taeg Nam, "Los objetos sanitarios en Le Corbusier: La libertad dispositiva y la exposición radical en los años 20," *RA. Revista de Arquitectura*, no. 15, 2013, 93.

78 María Candela Suárez, "Las villas Meyer y Hutheesing-Shodhan de Le Corbusier," (Barcelona: Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, 2007), 68. 79 Fuertes and Monteys, *Casa collage*, 34-36.

<figure><img src="image_102.png" /></figure>

21 version, in the interior perspective of the bedroom we see that the wall does not touch the ceiling, with the two pieces merging spatially.

In contrast, the following version dated June 11, 1926 merges the rooms for the nanny and the baby into a single unit. (78) The bathroom acts as a link between the child's bedroom, the playroom, and the nanny's bedroom. They are positioned in the center of the apartment, permitting the spatial continuity of the three pieces that merge in the bathroom.

There are no limits to the use of these objects, since the concatenation of the playroom, the bathroom, and the child's bedroom gives rise to endless activities and fun games that sometimes only children are able to invent.

"Children are masters of the 'misuse' of the widest variety of things they can play with, and sometimes they naively bring out the "alter ego" of many objects and places in the house. Children teach us the ambiguity of many things by daring to use them in a different way [...] They barge into domestic architecture in a modern way and provide a different perspective on the house." (79)

The wild imagination of Meyer's son was thus able to evoke a fun game in the actual bathtub, sailing across the rough seas on a tiny boat.

<figure><img src="image_103.png" /></figure>
This room is a clear vindication of the bathroom as the nerve center of the house. It triggers a series of functional and spatial relationships through the house which provide versatility and ambiguity to even the most prosaic activity.

Villa Savoye

On April 12, 1929 Le Corbusier submitted his definitive proposal for Villa Savoye, to be built on Beauregard plateau in Poissy, following several designs that had been rejected by the clients. In this project, the bathroom is directly connected to the couple's bedroom, shown undisguised just a few centimeters away from the main room. The figure of the washbasin and its stand, with a prominent presence seen from the entrance to the apartment, reappears without any misgiving, manifested all the more eloquently in the absence of enclosures that could hide its silhouette. In addition, a skylight above the washbasin exalts and magnifies its curved profile, a subtle action that manifests its position, as if it were a sacred relic beneath the great divine light.

Beside this object, there is a submersion bathtub that stands out from the rest of the sanitary ware. Turquoise blue glazed tiles cover the entire platform in which it is sunk, even perhaps substituting the sanitary ware since

<figure><img src="image_104.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms Andrés García Pruñonosa</figcaption></figure>

its continuity permits its use around the bathtub. (80) The link between the sanitary ware and the double bed is plausible thanks to the lack of partitions around these sanitary devices, the only element that might hide them if greater privacy was required being a two meter high white cloth curtain. (81)

A serpentine object that one might expect to find in a relaxation spa emerges perpendicular to the bathtub platform, organizing the two rooms. This is characteristic *chaise longue* silhouette used by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand, (82) clad with black ivory tiles. Its shape and its position in the most intimate space of the house is an obvious vindication of the desire for well-being and personal relaxation through body care. (83) Its position between the bathroom and the bedroom inspires an unquestionable functional relationship, where Eugénie Savoye, after a relaxing bath, could lie on the *chaise longue* while chatting with her husband, who might be lying on the bed. This room is thus once again enriched by a versatility of functions that can be combined in their everyday use with the bedroom and the rest of the rooms in the apartment, illustrating the way the bathroom was no longer regarded as a uniform space with unvarying contents. (84) Le Corbusier showed that a plethora of disparate objects could burst in, inducing the functional plurality of body care.

The bathroom for the couple's son Roger, shared with the guest bedroom, is subject to a radial circulation structure that permits fluctuating passage through three adjoining doors. This presents an opportunity to take advantage

80 Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, "Baño," *Todo sobre la casa* (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2011), 38. 81 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 96. 82 The evolution of the female bath in particular, as well as courtesy rules, allow new activities. Past bath spaces are old-fashioned; a new furniture's era starts. Boesiger, Le Corbusier and Stonorov, *Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret*, 157. 83 Gonzalo Pardo Díaz, *Cuerpo y casa: hacia el espacio doméstico contemporáneo desde las transformaciones de la cocina y el cuarto de baño*, (Madrid: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 2016), 183–184 84 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 45.
This room is a clear vindication of the bathroom as the nerve center of the house. It triggers a series of functional and spatial relationships through the house which provide versatility and ambiguity to even the most prosaic activity.

## Villa Savoye

On April 12, 1929 Le Corbusier submitted his definitive proposal for Villa Savoye, to be built on Beauregard plateau in Poissy, following several designs that had been rejected by the clients. In this project, the bathroom is directly connected to the couple's bedroom, shown undisguised just a few centimeters away from the main room. The figure of the washbasin and its stand, with a prominent presence seen from the entrance to the apartment, reappears without any misgiving, manifested all the more eloquently in the absence of enclosures that could hide its silhouette. In addition, a skylight above the washbasin exalts and magnifies its curved profile, a subtle action that manifests its position, as if it were a sacred relic beneath the great divine light.

Beside this object, there is a submersion bathtub that stands out from the rest of the sanitary ware. Turquoise blue glazed tiles cover the entire platform in which it is sunk, even perhaps substituting the sanitary ware since

<figure><img src="image_104.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms Andrés García Pruñonosa</figcaption></figure>

its continuity permits its use around the bathtub. (80) The link between the sanitary ware and the double bed is plausible thanks to the lack of partitions around these sanitary devices, the only element that might hide them if greater privacy was required being a two meter high white cloth curtain. (81)

A serpentine object that one might expect to find in a relaxation spa emerges perpendicular to the bathtub platform, organizing the two rooms. This is characteristic *chaise longue* silhouette used by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand, (82) clad with black ivory tiles. Its shape and its position in the most intimate space of the house is an obvious vindication of the desire for well-being and personal relaxation through body care. (83) Its position between the bathroom and the bedroom inspires an unquestionable functional relationship, where Eugénie Savoye, after a relaxing bath, could lie on the *chaise longue* while chatting with her husband, who might be lying on the bed. This room is thus once again enriched by a versatility of functions that can be combined in their everyday use with the bedroom and the rest of the rooms in the apartment, illustrating the way the bathroom was no longer regarded as a uniform space with unvarying contents. (84) Le Corbusier showed that a plethora of disparate objects could burst in, inducing the functional plurality of body care.

The bathroom for the couple's son Roger, shared with the guest bedroom, is subject to a radial circulation structure that permits fluctuating passage through three adjoining doors. This presents an opportunity to take advantage

80 Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, "Baño," *Todo sobre la casa* (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2011), 38. 81 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 96. 82 The evolution of the female bath in particular, as well as courtesy rules, allow new activities. Past bath spaces are old-fashioned; a new furniture's era starts. Boesiger, Le Corbusier and Stonorov, *Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret*, 157. 83 Gonzalo Pardo Díaz, *Cuerpo y casa: hacia el espacio doméstico contemporáneo desde las transformaciones de la cocina y el cuarto de baño*, (Madrid: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 2016), 183-184 84 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 45.
of the position of these three elements to enhance the functional relationships of the rooms. (85) By the mid-20th
century, this intention to unify served and servant spaces through interconnected doors had become a fairly com-
mon device for American architects. (86) However, in conjunction with the duality of the circulations, Le Corbusier
was able to generate a completely different concept of flexibility from today's established concept. He employed
the total permeability of the spaces, which in this case, facilitated more versatile routes and also an alternative use
of the bathroom during the day, allowing different people to use the sanitary devices in different ways.

Maison de Verre

The novelty of the translucent glass used on the facade of this home was an innovation. The numerous mechanisms and gadgets, meticulously studied and detailed by avant-garde architect Pierre Chareau, aroused Le Corbusier's interest, who closely followed its construction near his studio. (87) These engineering systems made the Dalsace family's activity more relaxed, reflected in the many rooms devoted to personal hygiene. Each of these rooms is different from the others, since their character and their materiality respond to different intimate conditions, depending on the person who will enjoy the cleansing activity. (88)

85 Fuertes and Montey s, *Casa collage*, 78. 86 R andolph Williams Sexton, *American Appar tment Houses of Today: Illustrating Plans, Details, Exteriors and Interiors of Modern City and Suburban Apartment Houses Throughout the United States* (New York: Architectural Book Publishing co., 1926). 87 The owner, Annie Dalsace, mentions her realisation that a small man stopped regularly in the hall to watch the construction and take notes. That man was none other than Le Corbusier. Jorge Torres Cueco, *Le Corbusier: Visiones de la técnica en cinco tiempos* (Barcelona: Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, 2004), 147. Original version: Marc Vellay, “Agli estremi del mattone Nevada,” *Rassegna*, no. 24, December 1985, 16. 88 Hugo Losman, “On toilets and modernity—an interview with Mary Vaughan Johnson,” *Paper (Platform for Architectural Projects, Essays & Research, 2015).*

Looking more closely, we can distinguish two different aspects of the Dalsace family's multipurpose bathroom. On the one hand, sheltered by an enigmatic system of metal cabins, Mr. Dalsace's sanitary equipment is hidden in a space with a more masculine character, where the most important feature is the shower function, a symbol of male sporting virility. On the other hand, Annie Dalsace's bathtub is separated from these sanitary appliances by folding shutters. In a similar context, each member of the couple could enjoy their body care in their own respective hygienic cabins. The adjacency of their sanitary facilities aided relaxed conversations, while the folding metal panels ensured privacy when required. (89) This aspect was also employed in the Savoye couple's rooms in the form of the tiled chaise longue and white curtain. However, while the Savoye apartment used a unique, uniform interpretation of the bedroom and the bathroom, in the Dalsace family's rooms, there was no such formal unit that could allow both rooms to be clustered in a single distributive piece. The purely functional nature of the bathroom is evidenced by the five entrance doors to this particular room, permitting versatile circulation in the midst of the wet area core. In spite of these obvious similarities, the spatial relationships that are defined are thus completely different in these two late-1920s homes, used by both architects as "laboratory space for experimentation". (90)

The couple's apartment is connected to the bedrooms, which have a private toilet, a washbasin, and a bidet. In-
serted on one side of the room on a rectangular platform, these sanitary facilities are hidden behind fretted metal

89 Esther Da Costa Meyer et al., *Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design* (New York: The Jewish Museum; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 180. 90 Hugo Losman, “On toilets and modernity.”
of the position of these three elements to enhance the functional relationships of the rooms. (85) By the mid-20th
century, this intention to unify served and servant spaces through interconnected doors had become a fairly com-
mon device for American architects. (86) However, in conjunction with the duality of the circulations, Le Corbusier
was able to generate a completely different concept of flexibility from today's established concept. He employed
the total permeability of the spaces, which in this case, facilitated more versatile routes and also an alternative use
of the bathroom during the day, allowing different people to use the sanitary devices in different ways.

Maison de Verre

The novelty of the translucent glass used on the facade of this home was an innovation. The numerous mechanisms and gadgets, meticulously studied and detailed by avant-garde architect Pierre Chareau, aroused Le Corbusier's interest, who closely followed its construction near his studio. (87) These engineering systems made the Dalsace family's activity more relaxed, reflected in the many rooms devoted to personal hygiene. Each of these rooms is different from the others, since their character and their materiality respond to different intimate conditions, depending on the person who will enjoy the cleansing activity. (88)

85 Fuertes and Monteys, *Casa collage*, 78. 86 Randolph Williams Sexton, *American Apartment Houses of Today: Illustrating Plans, Details, Exteriors and Interiors of Modern City and Suburban Apartment Houses Throughout the United States* (New York: Architectural Book Publishing co., 1926). 87 The owner, Annie Dalsace, mentions her realisation that a small man stopped regularly in the hall to watch the construction and take notes. That man was none other than Le Corbusier. Jorge Torres Cueco, *Le Corbusier: Visiones de la técnica en cinco tiempos* (Barcelona: Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, 2004), 147. Original version: Marc Vellay, "Agli estremi del mattone Nevada," *Rassegna*, no. 24, December 1985, 16. 88 Hugo Losman, "On toilets and modernity—an interview with Mary Vaughan Johnson," *Paper (Platform for Architectural Projects, Essays & Research, 2015)*.

Looking more closely, we can distinguish two different aspects of the Dalsace family's multipurpose bathroom. On the one hand, sheltered by an enigmatic system of metal cabins, Mr. Dalsace's sanitary equipment is hidden in a space with a more masculine character, where the most important feature is the shower function, a symbol of male sporting virility. On the other hand, Annie Dalsace's bathtub is separated from these sanitary appliances by folding shutters. In a similar context, each member of the couple could enjoy their body care in their own respective hygienic cabins. The adjacency of their sanitary facilities aided relaxed conversations, while the folding metal panels ensured privacy when required. (89) This aspect was also employed in the Savoye couple's rooms in the form of the tiled chaise longue and white curtain. However, while the Savoye apartment used a unique, uniform interpretation of the bedroom and the bathroom, in the Dalsace family's rooms, there was no such formal unit that could allow both rooms to be clustered in a single distributive piece. The purely functional nature of the bathroom is evidenced by the five entrance doors to this particular room, permitting versatile circulation in the midst of the wet area core. In spite of these obvious similarities, the spatial relationships that are defined are thus completely different in these two late-1920s homes, used by both architects as "laboratory space for experimentation". (90)

The couple's apartment is connected to the bedrooms, which have a private toilet, a washbasin, and a bidet. In-
serted on one side of the room on a rectangular platform, these sanitary facilities are hidden behind fretted metal

89 Esther Da Costa Meyer et al., *Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design* (New York: The Jewish Museum; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 180. 90 Hugo Losman, "On toilets and modernity."
panels whose transparencies leave little to one's imagination. These mobile concealment devices turn the bedrooms into a dramatic scene of theatrical performance. They can be compared to the *paravents* that muffled the actors' costume changes in theater dressing rooms, likewise sanitary appliances placed on the stage as the protagonists wait for the start of the performance.

These devices for bodily hygiene do not appear only in the bedrooms. In their daughter's bedroom, camouflaged by a folding wardrobe, a bathtub appears amidst her bookshelves. A bathtub thus resumes the leading role when the metal curtain is raised, its shape welcoming her figure for the duration of the act. These concealing devices play a new role here as a perfect hideout during the game.

In this paradigm of *spatial fluidity* (91) which enshrines the sanitary devices, Chareau's undeniable concern for the daily habits of the bourgeoisie was thus undeniably translated into a modernized vision of sanitary materiality and technique. Their shape projects a foretaste of the most avant-garde models of bathrooms blended with private rooms. (92)

<figure><img src="image_105.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms</figcaption></figure>

Andrés García Pruñonosa

## Immeuble Porte Molitor

On June 28, 1931 a Parc des Princes real estate company contacted Le Corbusier to commission an apartment block on in Rue Nungesser-et-Coli, including the top part of the building for an apartment of his own. This project could be compared to the purist villas with gardens that he designed in the 1920s.

In the final version built in 1934, Le Corbusier detached the bidet from the closet where the other sanitary appliances were clustered, and placed it in the foreground of the room. This position was by no means arbitrary. Flora Samuel explains in her book *Le Corbusier in Detail* that the bidet's exhibition here is an expression of architect's antagonism to the Christian faith for its repression of the vanity of sex. (93) A guest seated at the dining table could thus admire Le Corbusier's bold decision to highlight an object of bodily purification with the backdrop of the bedroom in perspective. It was showing the guests its role in the body cult ceremony. (94)

The washbasin, which gravitates before the patented Nevada cobblestone wall, is another crucial item in this apartment. Full of pipes, ducts, and downspouts, its shape is interpreted as a metaphor for the organism that breathes life into the workings of the house. (95) This beating, throbbing organ supplies the indispensable elements to this inhabitable machine.

91 Raúl Castellanos Gómez, *Casa por casa: reflexiones sobre el habitar* (Valencia: General de Ediciones de Arquitectura, 2009), 76.
92 Carreiro, *La casa*, 153.
93 Flora Samuel, *Le Corbusier in Detail* (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), 189.
94 His wife, Yvonne, was not exactly pleased about this decision. However, she put up with it. Charles Jencks, *Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture* (New York: Monacelli Press, 2000), 191.
95 Arthur Rüegg, "Transforming the bathroom: Perriand and Le Corbusier, 1927-57," *Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living* (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003), 116.
panels whose transparencies leave little to one's imagination. These mobile concealment devices turn the bedrooms into a dramatic scene of theatrical performance. They can be compared to the *paravents* that muffled the actors' costume changes in theater dressing rooms, likewise sanitary appliances placed on the stage as the protagonists wait for the start of the performance.

These devices for bodily hygiene do not appear only in the bedrooms. In their daughter's bedroom, camouflaged by a folding wardrobe, a bathtub appears amidst her bookshelves. A bathtub thus resumes the leading role when the metal curtain is raised, its shape welcoming her figure for the duration of the act. These concealing devices play a new role here as a perfect hideout during the game.

In this paradigm of *spatial fluidity* (91) which enshrines the sanitary devices, Chareau's undeniable concern for the daily habits of the bourgeoisie was thus undeniably translated into a modernized vision of sanitary materiality and technique. Their shape projects a foretaste of the most avant-garde models of bathrooms blended with private rooms. (92)

<figure><img src="image_105.png" /><figcaption>INTIMACY EXPOSED Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms</figcaption></figure>

Andrés García Pruñonosa

## Immeuble Porte Molitor

On June 28, 1931 a Parc des Princes real estate company contacted Le Corbusier to commission an apartment block on in Rue Nungesser-et-Coli, including the top part of the building for an apartment of his own. This project could be compared to the purist villas with gardens that he designed in the 1920s.

In the final version built in 1934, Le Corbusier detached the bidet from the closet where the other sanitary appliances were clustered, and placed it in the foreground of the room. This position was by no means arbitrary. Flora Samuel explains in her book *Le Corbusier in Detail* that the bidet's exhibition here is an expression of architect's antagonism to the Christian faith for its repression of the vanity of sex. (93) A guest seated at the dining table could thus admire Le Corbusier's bold decision to highlight an object of bodily purification with the backdrop of the bedroom in perspective. It was showing the guests its role in the body cult ceremony. (94)

The washbasin, which gravitates before the patented Nevada cobblestone wall, is another crucial item in this apartment. Full of pipes, ducts, and downspouts, its shape is interpreted as a metaphor for the organism that breathes life into the workings of the house. (95) This beating, throbbing organ supplies the indispensable elements to this inhabitable machine.

91 Raúl Castellanos Gómez, *Casa por casa: reflexiones sobre el habitar* (Valencia: General de Ediciones de Arquitectura, 2009), 76.
92 Carreiro, *La casa*, 153.
93 Flora Samuel, *Le Corbusier in Detail* (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), 189.
94 His wife, Yvonne, was not exactly pleased about this decision. However, she put up with it. Charles Jencks, *Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture* (New York: Monacelli Press, 2000), 191.
95 Arthur Rüegg, "Transforming the bathroom: Perriand and Le Corbusier, 1927-57," *Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living* (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003), 116.
Viewed as a whole, one of the most striking aspects of this version are textured lines on all the floors. This apparent massiveness invades the house from the equipment rooms. Each tiny part of the rooms in the house thus helps to create a single interpretation of the whole space. This could be regarded as the architect's iron determination to emphasize the dominance of the sanitary devices, which rush towards the rest of the rooms, imposing themselves as the precursors of spatial fluidity.

## Immeuble d'Habitation Rue Raynouard

In 1928, Perret exhibited his skillful research concretely with the construction of a building on Rue Raynouard in the western part of Paris. He built his own private apartment on the seventh floor.

Auguste Perret placed his sumptuous bathroom in the south-eastern part of the apartment, along with the bedrooms and the living room. This position was relevant with respect to the rest of the servant spaces, since it was beside the most noble rooms in the house, and its orthogonal shape gave it the best views, directing the viewer's gaze across the privileged scenery of the Champ de Mars park. (96)

<figure><img src="image_106.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_107.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms Andrés García Pruñonosa</figcaption></figure>

73

In contrast, the bathroom in the Molitor apartment was the result of the industrialized production of standard sanitary appliances, a powerful example of the artistic potential of these free organisms which spilled across the bedroom boundary, demonstrating their autonomy in the space. (97) Quite the opposite of Perret's building skills, here the result is a balanced bathroom, where he was even able to add a touch of color and materiality to each element.

But not everything is contrasted in these two apartments. Both show an obvious analogy with the bedroom as a nexus between the bathroom and the "living" rooms of the house. The spatial fluidity of both dwellings is tangible in the rooms stitched by the concatenated connecting doors, which blur the boundaries between the served and servant rooms. (98) However, although the relationship in Rue Raynouard between the three rooms is much clearer and direct due to the strong axial line of the plan, in the Molitor apartment, there is more equality between the bathroom and the noble rooms of the house thanks to the ceramic tiles, which provide a homogeneous reading to the house as a whole, whereas Perret's design is attenuated by the different types of paving.

Another highlight in the comparison between these two bathrooms is the similar attitude of both architects to the sanitary appliances. While Perret chose to feature the concrete washbasin as a perspective background for the dining room, Le Corbusier opted to exhibit the figure of the bidet, perhaps because of its more provocative intimate

<footnote n="96">96 Karla Britton, *Auguste Perret* (London: Phaidon, 2001), 146.</footnote>

<footnote n="97">97 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 95. 98 José Ramón Alonso Pereira, "Perret & Piacentini. Análisis comparativo de dos arquitecturas paralelas," *VLC arquitectura*, vol. 4, no. 1, 14.</footnote>
Viewed as a whole, one of the most striking aspects of this version are textured lines on all the floors. This apparent massiveness invades the house from the equipment rooms. Each tiny part of the rooms in the house thus helps to create a single interpretation of the whole space. This could be regarded as the architect's iron determination to emphasize the dominance of the sanitary devices, which rush towards the rest of the rooms, imposing themselves as the precursors of spatial fluidity.

## Immeuble d'Habitation Rue Raynouard

In 1928, Perret exhibited his skillful research concretely with the construction of a building on Rue Raynouard in the western part of Paris. He built his own private apartment on the seventh floor.

Auguste Perret placed his sumptuous bathroom in the south-eastern part of the apartment, along with the bedrooms and the living room. This position was relevant with respect to the rest of the servant spaces, since it was beside the most noble rooms in the house, and its orthogonal shape gave it the best views, directing the viewer's gaze across the privileged scenery of the Champ de Mars park. (96)

<figure><img src="image_106.png" /><figcaption>**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Down the Hall to the Right? A Glimpse into Le Corbusier's Bathrooms Andrés García Pruñonosa</figcaption></figure>

In contrast, the bathroom in the Molitor apartment was the result of the industrialized production of standard sanitary appliances, a powerful example of the artistic potential of these free organisms which spilled across the bedroom boundary, demonstrating their autonomy in the space. (97) Quite the opposite of Perret's building skills, here the result is a balanced bathroom, where he was even able to add a touch of color and materiality to each element.

But not everything is contrasted in these two apartments. Both show an obvious analogy with the bedroom as a nexus between the bathroom and the "living" rooms of the house. The spatial fluidity of both dwellings is tangible in the rooms stitched by the concatenated connecting doors, which blur the boundaries between the served and servant rooms. (98) However, although the relationship in Rue Raynouard between the three rooms is much clearer and direct due to the strong axial line of the plan, in the Molitor apartment, there is more equality between the bathroom and the noble rooms of the house thanks to the ceramic tiles, which provide a homogeneous reading to the house as a whole, whereas Perret's design is attenuated by the different types of paving.

Another highlight in the comparison between these two bathrooms is the similar attitude of both architects to the sanitary appliances. While Perret chose to feature the concrete washbasin as a perspective background for the dining room, Le Corbusier opted to exhibit the figure of the bidet, perhaps because of its more provocative intimate

<footnote n="96">96 Karla Britton, *Auguste Perret* (London: Phaidon, 2001), 146.</footnote>

<footnote n="97">97 Sung-Taeg Nam, *The Effect of Everyday Objects*, 95. 98 José Ramón Alonso Pereira, "Perret & Piacentini. Análisis comparativo de dos arquitecturas paralelas," *VLC arquitectura*, vol. 4, no. 1, 14.</footnote>
connotations. Although the anatomy of the washbasin is much more exposed than the bidet due to its central position on the axis of the house, Perret's basin is more restrained since it is not independent of the bathroom in the manner of Le Corbusier's bidet.

Whatever the case, despite the material disparity of the sanitary appliances and the discrepancies between the two bathrooms, both master and disciple obviously wanted to exalt the curved figures of these sanitary machines and exhibit them unashamedly to views through the doors of the rooms.

## Conclusion

After the end of the 1920s, the bathroom became just as normal in home design as the bedroom. In this context, their impact was moderated and they began a constantly evolving transformation towards the embellishment of their spaces. (99)

Once the bathroom had become domesticated, the time had come for it to be regarded more in terms of design and personalization to the client's tastes, evolving towards the scenario of bodily comfort and greater flexibility. (100)

Although the characteristic machine-like aesthetics of the bathrooms in Le Corbusier's purist villas were left behind,

99 Carreiro, *La casa*, 145. 100 Carreiro, *La casa*, 145.

it became clear that the Franco-Swiss architect's ideals about well-being and the functional bathroom had antici-pated the designs that began to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, in which one could also sense an ineluctable concern for the satisfaction of the physical and bodily needs of the modern man.

It is true that there was no serious concern for bathroom aesthetics. Le Corbusier preferred industrialized shapes and the apparent coldness of his sanitary appliances over the warmth of the more refined designs proposed by Elieen Gray and Auguste Perret. Nevertheless, the very sobriety of these bathrooms exalted their comfort and relaxation-related aspects, like the bathrooms in houses designed later on in the 1950s and 60s with their large gym zones, spa-related objects and living rooms anticipated in designs like Villa Savoye and the Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau.

Nor were these bathrooms to remain bound to the purely utilitarian nature of their core purpose. They seemed to project an image of continuous functional "flexibility," despite the fact that their distributive response was not marked by adaptable elements that could fold or slide out of the way. Nevertheless, their organizational principles gave rise to versatile uses and a multiplicity of circulation routes that were equally or even more consistent with the apparent flexibility generally found in these mobile elements.

Their approaches were obviously a different way for these architects to express flexibility, since they considered these rooms more in terms of their potential as a paradigm of fluidity and spatial dynamism produced through their
connotations. Although the anatomy of the washbasin is much more exposed than the bidet due to its central position on the axis of the house, Perret's basin is more restrained since it is not independent of the bathroom in the manner of Le Corbusier's bidet.

Whatever the case, despite the material disparity of the sanitary appliances and the discrepancies between the two bathrooms, both master and disciple obviously wanted to exalt the curved figures of these sanitary machines and exhibit them unashamedly to views through the doors of the rooms.

## Conclusion

After the end of the 1920s, the bathroom became just as normal in home design as the bedroom. In this context, their impact was moderated and they began a constantly evolving transformation towards the embellishment of their spaces. (99)

Once the bathroom had become domesticated, the time had come for it to be regarded more in terms of design and personalization to the client's tastes, evolving towards the scenario of bodily comfort and greater flexibility. (100)

Although the characteristic machine-like aesthetics of the bathrooms in Le Corbusier's purist villas were left behind,

99 Carreiro, *La casa*, 145. 100 Carreiro, *La casa*, 145.

it became clear that the Franco-Swiss architect's ideals about well-being and the functional bathroom had antici-pated the designs that began to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, in which one could also sense an ineluctable concern for the satisfaction of the physical and bodily needs of the modern man.

It is true that there was no serious concern for bathroom aesthetics. Le Corbusier preferred industrialized shapes and the apparent coldness of his sanitary appliances over the warmth of the more refined designs proposed by Elieen Gray and Auguste Perret. Nevertheless, the very sobriety of these bathrooms exalted their comfort and relaxation-related aspects, like the bathrooms in houses designed later on in the 1950s and 60s with their large gym zones, spa-related objects and living rooms anticipated in designs like Villa Savoye and the Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau.

Nor were these bathrooms to remain bound to the purely utilitarian nature of their core purpose. They seemed to project an image of continuous functional "flexibility," despite the fact that their distributive response was not marked by adaptable elements that could fold or slide out of the way. Nevertheless, their organizational principles gave rise to versatile uses and a multiplicity of circulation routes that were equally or even more consistent with the apparent flexibility generally found in these mobile elements.

Their approaches were obviously a different way for these architects to express flexibility, since they considered these rooms more in terms of their potential as a paradigm of fluidity and spatial dynamism produced through their
correlation with the adjacent rooms. This relationship often gives rise to a spatial continuity that contributes to a valuable ambiguity in the boundaries of the bathrooms, where this functional variability is accepted in the daily life of the individuals and their versatile use of the house.

All this was feasible thanks to the combined and concatenated layout of the bathroom with the "living" rooms of the house. The itineraries that emerged in the middle of these rooms had some sort of an impact on the operation of the domestic program, offering a duality of circulations through the bathrooms that encouraged a sense of circulatory freedom and, in turn, consolidated a useful ambiguity through the interconnected rooms.

Ultimately, Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Pierre Charreau, and Auguste Perret opted for a design process in which the bathroom became a latent element in the domestic program of the house due to its involvement in the operation of the home, which essentially promoted the improved performance of the machine for living in the service of its users.
correlation with the adjacent rooms. This relationship often gives rise to a spatial continuity that contributes to a valuable ambiguity in the boundaries of the bathrooms, where this functional variability is accepted in the daily life of the individuals and their versatile use of the house.

All this was feasible thanks to the combined and concatenated layout of the bathroom with the "living" rooms of the house. The itineraries that emerged in the middle of these rooms had some sort of an impact on the operation of the domestic program, offering a duality of circulations through the bathrooms that encouraged a sense of circulatory freedom and, in turn, consolidated a useful ambiguity through the interconnected rooms.

Ultimately, Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Pierre Charreau, and Auguste Perret opted for a design process in which the bathroom became a latent element in the domestic program of the house due to its involvement in the operation of the home, which essentially promoted the improved performance of the machine for living in the service of its users.
SPOT ON

Josiane Imhasly

<figure><img src="image_108.png" /></figure>

The Alte Fabrik in the Swiss town of Rapperswil was virtually predestined for an exhibition on the subject of toilets. This building, now a cultural center, housed Geberit AG's first major production facility. The company is known not only in Switzerland but throughout Europe and beyond as a sanitary technology group that is now active worldwide. It can be traced back to the Gebert family from Rapperswil and Albert Gebert, who commissioned this old factory, the "Alte Fabrik".

Back in 1905, the Geberts succeeded in manufacturing the first lead-lined wooden cisterns. The *à Phönix*, which was protected by the Imperial Patent Office in 1912, was produced for several decades, with subsequent innovations that significantly improved toilet flushing. The importance of reliable toilet flushing can hardly be overestimated to this day. Few people have never found themselves in the unpleasant situation of being confronted with someone else's "business" in a toilet (à Florian Bühler, Abort, 2019). This is precisely where fear of the other emerges, as Ruth Barcan notes: "When I hear of people afraid to touch a tap, I think less of real germs than of the fear of the other" (101). This physical contact is just one of the many complexes and sensitive relationships with and in this place. The toilet is a multi-layered cultural form in which psychology, medicine, sociology, architecture, design, and technology are intertwined. In the *Spot on* exhibition, the toilet stands out as a metaphor and interface for the inside and the outside, the visible and the invisible. What was just an invisible part of
SPOT ON

Josiane Imhasly

<figure><img src="image_107.png" /></figure>

The Alte Fabrik in the Swiss town of Rapperswil was virtually predestined for an exhibition on the subject of toilets. This building, now a cultural center, housed Geberit AG's first major production facility. The company is known not only in Switzerland but throughout Europe and beyond as a sanitary technology group that is now active worldwide. It can be traced back to the Gebert family from Rapperswil and Albert Gebert, who commissioned this old factory, the "Alte Fabrik".

Back in 1905, the Geberts succeeded in manufacturing the first lead-lined wooden cisterns. The *à Phönix*, which was protected by the Imperial Patent Office in 1912, was produced for several decades, with subsequent innovations that significantly improved toilet flushing. The importance of reliable toilet flushing can hardly be overestimated to this day. Few people have never found themselves in the unpleasant situation of being confronted with someone else's "business" in a toilet (à Florian Bühler, Abort, 2019). This is precisely where fear of the other emerges, as Ruth Barcan notes: "When I hear of people afraid to touch a tap, I think less of real germs than of the fear of the other" (101). This physical contact is just one of the many complexes and sensitive relationships with and in this place. The toilet is a multi-layered cultural form in which psychology, medicine, sociology, architecture, design, and technology are intertwined. In the *Spot on* exhibition, the toilet stands out as a metaphor and interface for the inside and the outside, the visible and the invisible. What was just an invisible part of
the human being turns into something disgusting: a visible excretion in the toilet bowl, to be immediately ejected and disappear into the sewer pipe and the sewage system. The toilet brings the inside of a person—her or his biology and psyche—into contact with the outside, their environment, the architecture. Moreover, it is connected to the underground via the invisible sewage system.

The use of a toilet can thus also be understood as a moment of transfer: on the one hand as an interface between the visible and the invisible in our society, and on the other hand, as a precarious psychological moment.

More than 50 years ago, Alexander Kira's study *The Bathroom* (102) showed that the normal posture used in the West for defecation is harmful to our health. Yet the design of the toilet and the associated posture has hardly changed since then. “Toilets resist change,” notes Harvey Molotch in the Introduction to *Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing* (103), because the designers of toilets plan for them to be hidden: the toilet is also a taboo for architects. This tabooing of human excretion, a relatively recent phenomenon, has advanced hand in hand with modernization. Using the toilet, theories of modernization can be questioned as theories of progress. Toilets with flushing water existed as early as 3000 BC, and in the Roman Empire, there were even latrines with underfloor heating and marble seats. In the Middle Ages, however, they were dispensed with and the urge for relief shifted to the street. According to Norbert Elias (104), the tabooing of the excretory functions has had something to do with the process of civilization since the 18th century, i.e., in step with changes in

social structures. In Purity and Danger (105), Mary Douglas argues that dirt is what society defines as such in order to maintain order.

At the level of the individual as well, the toilet represents a psychologically critical moment. One has to deal with one's own body and its uncontrollable expressions, as well as those of other people. As soon as the excretion is ejected, it is no longer considered to belong to the body. It stands for an encounter with the repressed and the threat of non-influencable transformation.

A key work of the exhibition is Sarah Lucas' sculpture *The Old In Out* (1998). In this work, the toilet, a potentially disgusting object, becomes an extremely attractive sculpture cast from polyurethane. This was originally part of an installation consisting of nine toilets. The ordinary becomes elegant here, as is so often the case in Lucas' work. The English expression "the old in-out" has both sexual and—in this case—scaological connotations. It reminds one of foods and liquids that enter the body and are expelled as excretion. The transparency of the sculpture also points to what flows through the body. The toilet motif is repeated in the work of Lucas, one of the major representatives of Abject Art. This feminist art movement deals with abjection, things that trigger disgust or phobias. With Lucas, toilets stand for mortality, self-destructive instincts, and abusive attitudes towards the female body.

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Spot On Josiane Imhasly

<figure><img src="image_109.png" /></figure>

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102 Alexander Kia, *The Bathroom* (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1966). 103 Molotch, Harvey, Laura Noren, eds, *Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing* (New York: NYU Press, 2010). 104 Elias, Norbert, *The Civilizing Process, Vol.I. The History of Manners* (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), 224–236. 105 Mary Douglas, *Purity and Danger* (New York: Praeger, 1966).
the human being turns into something disgusting: a visible excretion in the toilet bowl, to be immediately ejected and disappear into the sewer pipe and the sewage system. The toilet brings the inside of a person—her or his biology and psyche—into contact with the outside, their environment, the architecture. Moreover, it is connected to the underground via the invisible sewage system.

The use of a toilet can thus also be understood as a moment of transfer: on the one hand as an interface between the visible and the invisible in our society, and on the other hand, as a precarious psychological moment.

More than 50 years ago, Alexander Kira's study *The Bathroom* (102) showed that the normal posture used in the West for defecation is harmful to our health. Yet the design of the toilet and the associated posture has hardly changed since then. “Toilets resist change,” notes Harvey Molotch in the Introduction to *Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing* (103), because the designers of toilets plan for them to be hidden: the toilet is also a taboo for architects. This tabooing of human excretion, a relatively recent phenomenon, has advanced hand in hand with modernization. Using the toilet, theories of modernization can be questioned as theories of progress. Toilets with flushing water existed as early as 3000 BC, and in the Roman Empire, there were even latrines with underfloor heating and marble seats. In the Middle Ages, however, they were dispensed with and the urge for relief shifted to the street. According to Norbert Elias (104), the tabooing of the excretory functions has had something to do with the process of civilization since the 18th century, i.e., in step with changes in

social structures. In Purity and Danger (105), Mary Douglas argues that dirt is what society defines as such in order to maintain order.

At the level of the individual as well, the toilet represents a psychologically critical moment. One has to deal with one's own body and its uncontrollable expressions, as well as those of other people. As soon as the excretion is ejected, it is no longer considered to belong to the body. It stands for an encounter with the repressed and the threat of non-influencable transformation.

A key work of the exhibition is Sarah Lucas' sculpture *The Old In Out* (1998). In this work, the toilet, a potentially disgusting object, becomes an extremely attractive sculpture cast from polyurethane. This was originally part of an installation consisting of nine toilets. The ordinary becomes elegant here, as is so often the case in Lucas' work. The English expression "the old in-out" has both sexual and—in this case—scaological connotations. It reminds one of foods and liquids that enter the body and are expelled as excretion. The transparency of the sculpture also points to what flows through the body. The toilet motif is repeated in the work of Lucas, one of the major representatives of Abject Art. This feminist art movement deals with abjection, things that trigger disgust or phobias. With Lucas, toilets stand for mortality, self-destructive instincts, and abusive attitudes towards the female body.

**INTIMACY EXPOSED** Spot On Josiane Imhasly

<figure><img src="image_108.png" /></figure>

77

102 Alexander Kia, *The Bathroom* (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1966). 103 Molotch, Harvey, Laura Noren, eds, *Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing* (New York: NYU Press, 2010). 104 Elias, Norbert, *The Civilizing Process, Vol.I. The History of Manners* (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), 224–236.

105 Mary Douglas, *Purity and Danger* (New York: Praeger, 1966).
*The Old In-Out* is also reminiscent of the most famous toilet in art history, Duchamp's 1917 *Readymade Fountain*. On the one hand, the aesthetic exaggeration of the object, the toilet bowl or urinal, is achieved by *Fountain*, through the title and in *The Old In-Out*, the material and the design. On the other hand, the toilet is visible in both works as a gender-specific object. The urinal was ultimately not approved for exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917 because above all, it was deemed not suitable to be presented to the female exhibition visitors. This gendered connotation is particularly interesting against the background of *Fountain* for Marcel Duchamp and also for a woman, Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Several art historians have provided credible evidence for this thesis in recent years. Glyn Thompson, for example, showed that the urinal was not in fact made by J.L. Mott Iron Works, as Duchamp claimed in the 1960s (in an interview with Otto Hahn: “Mutt came from Mott’s”), (106) but by Trenton Potteries Co. Given that *Fountain* was sent to the Society from Philadelphia, and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was living there at the time, her authorship seems be entirely plausible. Somewhat more daring is the interpretation of R. Mutt’s signature as a reference to “mother”—the baroness came from Germany—or the statement that when turned 180 degrees, the urinal reminds one of a uterus. In response to these research results, ten artists—Anna Artaker, Julia Bodamer, Lily Cursed, Lotte Meret Effinger, Julia Kälin, Quintessa Matranga, Victorine Müller, Sereina Steinemann, Vanessa Thill and Addie Wagenknecht—were invited to pay homage to Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s *Fountain* to complement the umpteen homages to Marcel Duchamp’s

*Fountain* and playfully capture the possibility of female authorship for this famous artwork. Posing the question, *Où sont les toilettes s'il vous plaît?* (2018), Bethan Huws pays an important tribute to Duchamp as well. Huws has been reflecting on Duchamp's work since 1999 and enriches the research about him with her own interpretation. In particular, at the linguistic level, titles, puns, ideograms and symbols have attracted her attention, along with Duchamp himself. The social environment in Duchamp's time was shaped by World War I (to which the Dada movement reacted): upheavals and revolutions, modernizations and industrialized production. This shows in a work like *Fountain*, as well as in the question of the relationship between art and industrial production that generally arises (107). The avant-garde of modernism was interested in technological modernization at the beginning of the 20th century, not as the standard bearer of this modernity but as its critic. It aestheticized modernity and showed that the ideology of progress was absurd and deceptive. Sewage systems and bathrooms have been shaped by this ideology of modernity and progress, like other areas of architecture. This aspect has been visiblized in the series *Ideal Standard* (2015) by Noha Mokhtar & Gregor Huber. Their photographic investigation of facades in the broader sense tracks down political ideologies and shows how they are manifested in architectural and domestic objects like the stacked toilets photographed by Mokhtar in Egypt in 2015. But wouldn't it be equally plausible if these toilets had been photographed in the USA in the 1960s? The words of Molotch come to mind: "Toilets resist change". (108) In 1966, Alexander Kira published *The Bathroom*. (109) This study was to the bathroom what
*The Old In-Out* is also reminiscent of the most famous toilet in art history, Duchamp's 1917 *Readymade Fountain*. On the one hand, the aesthetic exaggeration of the object, the toilet bowl or urinal, is achieved by *Fountain*, through the title and in *The Old In-Out*, the material and the design. On the other hand, the toilet is visible in both works as a gender-specific object. The urinal was ultimately not approved for exhibition by the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917 because above all, it was deemed not suitable to be presented to the female exhibition visitors. This gendered connotation is particularly interesting against the background of *Fountain* for Marcel Duchamp and also for a woman, Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Several art historians have provided credible evidence for this thesis in recent years. Glyn Thompson, for example, showed that the urinal was not in fact made by J.L. Mott Iron Works, as Duchamp claimed in the 1960s (in an interview with Otto Hahn: “Mutt came from Mott’s”), (106) but by Trenton Potteries Co. Given that *Fountain* was sent to the Society from Philadelphia, and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was living there at the time, her authorship seems be entirely plausible. Somewhat more daring is the interpretation of R. Mutt’s signature as a reference to “mother”—the baroness came from Germany—or the statement that when turned 180 degrees, the urinal reminds one of a uterus. In response to these research results, ten artists—Anna Artaker, Julia Bodamer, Lily Cursed, Lotte Meret Effinger, Julia Kälin, Quintessa Matranga, Victorine Müller, Sereina Steinemann, Vanessa Thill and Addie Wagenknecht—were invited to pay homage to Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s *Fountain* to complement the umpteen homages to Marcel Duchamp’s

*Fountain* and playfully capture the possibility of female authorship for this famous artwork. Posing the question, *Où sont les toilettes s'il vous plaît?* (2018), Bethan Huws pays an important tribute to Duchamp as well. Huws has been reflecting on Duchamp's work since 1999 and enriches the research about him with her own interpretation. In particular, at the linguistic level, titles, puns, ideograms and symbols have attracted her attention, along with Duchamp himself. The social environment in Duchamp's time was shaped by World War I (to which the Dada movement reacted): upheavals and revolutions, modernizations and industrialized production. This shows in a work like *Fountain*, as well as in the question of the relationship between art and industrial production that generally arises (107). The avant-garde of modernism was interested in technological modernization at the beginning of the 20th century, not as the standard bearer of this modernity but as its critic. It aestheticized modernity and showed that the ideology of progress was absurd and deceptive. Sewage systems and bathrooms have been shaped by this ideology of modernity and progress, like other areas of architecture. This aspect has been visibilized in the series *Ideal Standard* (2015) by Noha Mokhtar & Gregor Huber. Their photographic investigation of facades in the broader sense tracks down political ideologies and shows how they are manifested in architectural and domestic objects like the stacked toilets photographed by Mokhtar in Egypt in 2015. But wouldn't it be equally plausible if these toilets had been photographed in the USA in the 1960s? The words of Molotch come to mind: “Toilets resist change”. (108) In 1966, Alexander Kira published *The Bathroom*. (109) This study was to the bathroom what
the Kinsey Reports of 1953 were to the realm of sexuality: the first comprehensive scientific investigation of a social taboo. In view of the social upheavals at the end of the 1960s, it is not surprising that the first edition in 1966 contains schematic drawings and images of clothed bodies instead of photographs of naked people, which changed for the second edition, published in 1976. Perhaps the interdisciplinary Fluxus group of artists, built around George Maciunas on the issue of architecture and design issues, was inspired by Kira's study to formulate suggestions for alternative toilet designs that were not meant to be very serious (110). The Fluxus ideas in the 1970s, like at the design competition for the toilet of the future launched by Geberit AG in 1989, show that it is not that easy to design a "better" toilet. How design and technical solutions have changed over the last hundred years and the arguments used to sell the products sold to men (and less often to women) is illustrated by the wallpaper featuring Geberit advertisements and product information since the 1920s.

The design of sanitary appliances is in itself a challenge for private spaces. The task becomes even more complex when it comes to public toilet facilities. Only here are the taboos associated with the toilet completely broken down. Here, the boundaries between public and private become blurred, and psychological and social mechanisms of oppression become visible. Several works in the exhibition address the toilet as a social space with certain rules of behavior and a strict communication system. Public toilets are a particularly sensitive issue, as shown by the absurd discussions fueled by Donald Trump about transgender and gender-neutral toilets in recent years, because

they are gendered places. Jaanus Samma has been examining public men's toilets for several years. *The Readymade Divider* (2017) takes a central position in this area of his work. The three partition walls create—in the exhibition space as well—a stage on which a social theater takes place. They focus on contacts in the sphere of the urinal and the associated uncertainties. Samma's collages entitled *Study of a Toilet* (2016–2018) focus on overlooked objects with an unusual combination of historical ornaments and motifs, as well as everyday objects from toilets. The collages elevate these objects and expose their misguided tabooing.

Julie Verhoeven is a master at addressing taboo subjects with ease and humor in her art. In 2016, she transformed a public toilet facility as part of Frieze Projects at the London Fair into an immersive work of art called *The Toilet Attendance... Now Wash Your Hands*. She decorated the room, developed an ambient fragrance and played music mixed with digestive noises.

As a toilet attendant, Verhoeven sold toilet props such as pile of shit emojis made from velvet (customers were allowed to pay as much as they wanted), and engaged her toilet users in conversation. With her performances she drew attention to the precarious working conditions of the mostly female toilet attendants. As seen in the video *Now Wash Your Hands* (2016), she encountered various toilet taboos without fear of contact: menstruation, sex, excretions, drugs, and smells. In the video, the toilet attendants almost become psychologists who strike up conversations amongst themselves and with others on issues such as gender, disgust and hygiene.

INTIMACY EXPOSED Spot On Josiane Imhasly

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108 Molotch, Harvey, Laura Noren, eds, *Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing* (New York: NYU Press, 2010), 4.

110 Maciunas, *Flux Toilets* (New York City: Fluxus Newsletter, 1972).

109 Alexander Kia,
the Kinsey Reports of 1953 were to the realm of sexuality: the first comprehensive scientific investigation of a social taboo. In view of the social upheavals at the end of the 1960s, it is not surprising that the first edition in 1966 contains schematic drawings and images of clothed bodies instead of photographs of naked people, which changed for the second edition, published in 1976. Perhaps the interdisciplinary Fluxus group of artists, built around George Maciunas on the issue of architecture and design issues, was inspired by Kira's study to formulate suggestions for alternative toilet designs that were not meant to be very serious (110). The Fluxus ideas in the 1970s, like at the design competition for the toilet of the future launched by Geberit AG in 1989, show that it is not that easy to design a "better" toilet. How design and technical solutions have changed over the last hundred years and the arguments used to sell the products sold to men (and less often to women) is illustrated by the wallpaper featuring Geberit advertisements and product information since the 1920s.

The design of sanitary appliances is in itself a challenge for private spaces. The task becomes even more complex when it comes to public toilet facilities. Only here are the taboos associated with the toilet completely broken down. Here, the boundaries between public and private become blurred, and psychological and social mechanisms of oppression become visible. Several works in the exhibition address the toilet as a social space with certain rules of behavior and a strict communication system. Public toilets are a particularly sensitive issue, as shown by the absurd discussions fueled by Donald Trump about transgender and gender-neutral toilets in recent years, because

they are gendered places. Jaanus Samma has been examining public men's toilets for several years. *The Readymade Divider* (2017) takes a central position in this area of his work. The three partition walls create—in the exhibition space as well—a stage on which a social theater takes place. They focus on contacts in the sphere of the urinal and the associated uncertainties. Samma's collages entitled *Study of a Toilet* (2016–2018) focus on overlooked objects with an unusual combination of historical ornaments and motifs, as well as everyday objects from toilets. The collages elevate these objects and expose their misguided tabooing.

Julie Verhoeven is a master at addressing taboo subjects with ease and humor in her art. In 2016, she transformed a public toilet facility as part of Frieze Projects at the London Fair into an immersive work of art called *The Toilet Attendance... Now Wash Your Hands*. She decorated the room, developed an ambient fragrance and played music mixed with digestive noises.

As a toilet attendant, Verhoeven sold toilet props such as pile of shit emojis made from velvet (customers were allowed to pay as much as they wanted), and engaged her toilet users in conversation. With her performances she drew attention to the precarious working conditions of the mostly female toilet attendants. As seen in the video *Now Wash Your Hands* (2016), she encountered various toilet taboos without fear of contact: menstruation, sex, excretions, drugs, and smells. In the video, the toilet attendants almost become psychologists who strike up conversations amongst themselves and with others on issues such as gender, disgust and hygiene.

INTIMACY EXPOSED Spot On Josiane Imhasly

79