Avanzar significa también mirar hacia atrás. Cumplir la misión de crear baños seguros e inclusivos que satisfagan las necesidades de un rango diverso depersonas de diferentes edades, géneros, religiones y capacidades requiere de unaperspectiva amplia. Parapoder entender cómo llegamos al “punto muerto” en el que nos encontramos hoy respecto al debate sobre el diseño de estos espacios, debemos considerar que los baños fueron y sonproyectados dentro de un contexto social e históricoparticular.
This article, written by Joel Sanders in the framework ofStalled's investigations!To create safe, sustainable and inclusivepublic baths, it is a translation of the original essay of itpublished in-Stalled!Online- which you can read in English at the following link.History is a crucial tool, a constant testimony ofpractices evolve and that the future can be different from thepresent.The creation ofpublic spaces that foster diversity and inclusion depends on the first identified and then the deeply entrenched historical and ideological forces are overcome that have shaped the spaces that we inhabit daily.We must understand that architecture is an inherentlyprescriptive andprospective discipline: we createplans of spaces that we will live in the future.If we want to imagine an alternative future, history is a crucial startingpoint.
There is a vast literature dedicated to the history of bathrooms that allows us to understand the evolution that these spaces have suffered over time-mainly from an Anglo-Americanperspective-.A wide range of authors from various fields such as the history of architecture orpsychoanalysis have explored this rich territory from a variety ofperspectives: theoretical, social, economic and technological- it acquires the literature recommended by Salled!Through the following link-.This text does not seek to be a descriptive and dispassionate story or a mere compendium of information, but rather seeks toproblematize the ideas we currently have on the bathrooms, synthesizing some highlighting historical aspects to destabilize the ways of understanding this daily space-the segregated bathroomby sex- whose design is usually "to be seated", considering universal and inevitable.My goal is to dissipate thepredominant assumption that the design of the bathrooms is molded by the function, as dictated by the biological and technologicalparameters.I hope to demonstrate that the history of design is culturally relative, a complex narrative that takes into consideration an interconnected series ofpolitical, economic and technological forces that are driven by changing cultural conceptions about the nature of health and hygiene,privacy anddecorum, rich andpoor, sex, race and gender.
The structure of this summary reflects a clear bifurcation in the history of the architecture of the bathrooms: until the 19th century, the washing and the elimination of waste were spatially separated until the advent of the water supply systems that made the underground sewerspossibleAt the end of the 19th century.Therefore, this narrative is divided into three sections.The first two arepresented asparallel chronologies of the spaces that housed, on the one hand, the body cleaning activities and on the other, the elimination of waste.The third section, dedicated to the design of the bathrooms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discusses how these two bathpractices were consolidated for the first time in a single room.This union definition the configuration we currently know.-Not that this chronology of bathpractices is centered on the West and does not take into account the spatial accommodation of non-western bathpractices.-
Part 1: Cleaning
La antigüedad y laEdad Media
Throughout the history of humanity, washing and body cleaning, apractice that today we associate directly with hygiene, has begun to "become fashionable".Historians describe how from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages, men and women were washed in communal bathrooms.Open from lunchtime to sunset, the Roman bathrooms, such as the Termas de Caracalla and Diocleciano in Rome, were featheful architectural engineering feats dueWater supplied by aqueducts.Built and directed by theState, they were a common daily destination for all kinds of Roman men and women where to bathe and socialize.These multipurpose buildings not only incorporated a variety of cold, warm and hotpools, but also services such as stores, gyms and libraries.Some could accommodate more than 8.000people at the same time.
Los baños eran mixtos: Si bien algunos baños termalespúblicos de la república tenían instalaciones separadaspara hombres y mujeres, otros establecimientos muy respetables acomodaban baños mixtos nudistas-unapráctica común en Marcial, Juvenal, Plinio y Quintiliano-.While academics defended theprevalence of shared bathrooms, some emperors, such as Adriano, opposed, indicating that thispractice was generalized, a matter ofpersonal choice that varied betweenpeople, the region and the establishment.
During the Middle Ages, the Church recognized cleaning and hygiene as Christian virtues.The kings, gentlemen and the aristocracy enjoyed in their houses of laundry rituals with scented waters in wooden baths covered with flax fabrics to avoid splinters.The commoners, on the other hand, usedpublic enclosures and bath mixes, where men and women were hygienized in communal bathtubs, often scented with herbs and spices and covered with fabrics to retain the steam.In someplaces, customers even had dinner, supporting food in tables transversely on bathtubs.
El Renacimiento y la Ilustración
But for almost 200 years, since 1500-1750, during the Renaissance and Protestant Reform, there was apartial suspension of these common body cleaning activities.The decline was theproduct of two factors: moral issues andpre-scientific conceptions about the infection of diseases.The thermal baths earned a bad reputation and were closed.People believed that diseases such as syphilis spread over contaminated water and through the smelly air emanating fromplaces with bad sanitary conditions, overcrowded spaces and dirty clothes.According to thepopular wisdom of the moment, washing accelerated the infectionprocesses, allowing the diseases contained in water and air topenetrate humanpores and holes.As a consequence,public bathrooms closed and washing began to bepracticedprivately.In order not to immerse their bodies in dangerous water, frequentpersonal washing was replaced by washed clothes, so the appearance became more important than hygiene. Los manuales médicos incluso aconsejaban a la gente lavar sólo laspartes del cuerpo que eran visiblespara elpúblico-cara, cuello y manos- y enmascarar los olores corporales ofensivos conperfume.The white linen necks and fists without spots were a visible sign of wealth and social status.
El Siglo XIX
In the mid -nineteenth century, the values of the Victorian era and advances in medical science led to a claim of body cleaning in Britain and North America.There the middle class developed an ideology of cleaning that equatedpersonal hygiene with Christianpurity, morality and respectability.Two influential doctors, the DR.James Currie and Sir John Floyer, argued that the frequent bath was therapeutic.Its healingproperties led to the opening of Arab Baños (Hammam), a fashion inspired by orientalism with "exotic" design elements.
At the same time, medical science discovered that diseases such as cholera spread through contaminated water: this motivated municipalities to invest in the construction of urban sanitation systems and be interested inpublic health.At the same time, a new industry designed the first bathroom accessories for the middle classes.With the confluence of these cultural, technological and economic forces, the reputation of the bathroom changed: it was redeemed as a healthypractice, now carried out inprivate houses by the upper and medium classes.
Before the arrival of bath water withpipes in the 1860s, the rich depended on the servants to carry heavy hot water cubes from the basements to the bedrooms to fill and empty jugs, bowls andporcelain urinals.But at the end of the century,private bathrooms with hot water became increasingly common in American and British middle -class homes.Body smell, a classes sign, could be overcome;Everyone had the right to smell like an aristocrat well careful.
Part 2: Elimination
In his book "History of Shit", Dominque Laport describes how from ancient times to the Middle Ages, human excrements were considered dirty and of bad smell but did not cause the intense feelings of shame and disgust that cause today cause today.Although access to waste management was a classprivilege function, regardless of each other's socialposition, coming into contact with urine and feces was an inevitablepart of everyday life.
GATE & ESE are one of the toughest examinations which require full and sincere efforts.WHILE THE WAY TO ACHIEVE YOUR ... https: // t.CO/YMEVNDY8MR
— MADE EASY Fri Jun 04 12:36:40 +0000 2021
La Antigüedad y laEdad Media
The sewerage systems such as the maximum sewer in Rome were the engineering wonders that threw the waste from theprivate houses of the rich and the latrines on the ground floor of some apartment buildings through a central channel towards the main sewer systemAnd towards a nearby river or stream. Sin embargo, la mayoría de la gente usualmente arrojaba estos residuos a la calle-y lospeatones debían esquivarlos-.The Effusive lawpaid damage to injuredpeople during everyday incidents.
Romans of all ages defined in communal latrines that many archaeologists believe they were mixed.Located in urban centers, latrines were architecturally distinctive facilities, often designed next to gardens that housed four to fiftypeople, making defecation a social activity.Letrinas were large rectangular rooms, covered but open in the ventilation center and covered in itsperimeter with continuous wooden or stone benches with lock -shaped openings.Water flowed in channels under the seats, transporting waste to the municipal sewerage system.After eliminating them, the Romans cleaned themselves using a shared sea sponge embedded in vinegar.Some latrines were made decorated with marble coatings, mosaics and fresh.
During the Middle Ages, the bathroom design continued to be based on the social class.The castles were equipped with special spaces that had holes on the ground.They were similar to cabinets inserted in the thickness of the outer walls, which threw human waste in the wells that were in the low floors.
Although they lacked the sophisticated urban sanitation infrastructure that characterized the Roman era, the historian Carole Rawcliffe describes how medieval citiespromised to finance and maintainpublic toilets, called "Pissyngholes" and "private".Many were large facilities wherepeople of both sexes defined through holes inserted in bridges that deposited human waste in the rivers below.Whittington's longhouse, located in GreenwichStreet, London, had capacity for 84people.However, for the mostpart, human waste was thrown directly into the dirty streets of the city, apractice that would continue until the introduction of sewerage systems in the 19th century.
Ilustración
Attitudes about elimination changed dramatically during the Enlightenment: the appearance of the notion of autonomous individualputpersonal modesty in the foreground, especially among the sexes.Before it was frowned upon, it was common for thepeople of all social classes, urinating and defecating indoors, in chimneys and hidden corners, as well as outsourcing, in streets and alleys, in view of others.However, now thesepractices were considered objectable, if not frankly disgusting.For example, a social law manual dictated that it was no longer appropriate to establish a conversation withpeople who were on squatting in the street.[3] For the first time, bodyparts and human waste were considered shameful elements that should be hidden from sight.
The women's fashion of the 18th century was designed taking into account the modesty: the aristocratic women could discreetly hide a "bourdaloauses", aporcelain ship -shaped receptacle under their bulky skirts.
Siglo XIX
The incorporation of toilets with discharge into homes exemplifies how the acceptance of technological innovations can be linked to a change in social attitudes.Although Sir John Harrington installed the first toilet with water discharge in his Bath home in 1596, it was notpopular until the great exhibition of 1851, where a model designed by Thomas Crapper was exhibited to beproduced in mass.Some attribute their late adoption to the lack of access to current water and the social conventions of the moment.
However, the confluence of changing values and advances in medical sciencepromoted technological developments: the Victorians came to assesspersonal hygiene and modesty and the discovery that water, and not the vitiated air, transmitted diseases, ledto givepriority toplumbing over ventilation.However, a health crisis was needed, the greatplague of 1858, to trigger the construction of the extensive urban sewerage system of London.Current water, together with the arrival of the health -produced toilets, raided the way for domestic toilets to become an affordable need for the upper and half classes. Porprimera vez, dos actividadespreviamente segregadas-lavado y eliminación-, se unieron en una habitación cerrada, el bañoprivado que hoy tan incorporado tenemos a nuestras vidas.
Theplumbing facilities manufactured at affordableprices and treated bypublic sanitation systems not only gave rise to the birth of the domestic bath, but also made another significant developmentpossible, the appearance of the first bathrooms segregated by sex.As described by theprofessor and scholar in laws Terry Kogan, the design of the bathrooms in the UnitedStates was formed through an ideology of "separate spheres" that confined women, considered "weak sex", to the home while men, men, men,Physics and intellectually stronger, they were free to occupypublic space.Men and women used the "private", independent wooden enclosures that were normally in the rear courtyards of the houses.However, in the mid -nineteenth century, women began toprogressively leave homes toparticipate in metropolitan cultural and commercial activities, as well as to work.This circumstance wasperceived as a danger to them, so, in response, the architects introduced exclusive spaces for women in libraries, hotels, department stores and factories, conceiving them as safe shelters whoprotected the "vulnerable women" of malepressures.
Part 3: The modern bathroom
Abyección
A finales del siglo XIX, dos actividades-lavado y eliminación- se consolidaron en una habitación cerrada configurada en dos tipos de baños estándar que han llegado hasta nuestros días: el baño domésticoprivado y el bañopúblico segregadopor sexo.Throughout the twentieth century, their designs refined as modern architects and designers responded to new cultural anxieties about the body "abject".
The feministphilosopher Julia Kristeva used the term abjection to describe induced discomfort when we come into contact with human waste, not only urine and feces, but also other body substances discharged in the bathrooms, such as sweat, saliva, mucus, vomiting and blood.Numerous thinkers, including Sigmund Freud, Luce Irigaray, John Paul Sartre, Mary Douglas and Elizabeth Grosz haveprovided a variety of explanations for the feelings of anxiety caused by abjection.Human by -products are threatening because, unlike solid materials that are stable and easy to control, body fluids are intrinsically unstable substances that resist containment.
Although they vary in texture and appearance, abject substances share a common characteristic: they are considered unclean.But as Mary Douglas argues, there is nothing inherently dirty in dirt.Dirt is a cultural construction, "matter out ofplace", which "offends order".[4] For this reason, viscous elements are considered especially repellent because there are in a limit and indeterminate state between solid and liquid that defies our sense of order and control.And what is worse, sometimes they are discharged by bodies that have lostphysical control due to disease, old age, disability or death.
Worse, these unstoppable viscous fluids not only violate our impulse of order, but also underline theporosity and vulnerability of the body.We tend to comfort ourselves by conceiving human skin as a waterproof membrane that functions as the facades of buildings;A continuous surface that contains the body, the receptacle of the mind, and that clearly differentiates us from the outside world.But body substances cross the skin limit, flowing from inside out. Sustancias viscosas como el sudor, elpus y la sangre, se filtran y rezumanpor losporos y las llagas mientras que la orina, la saliva, las heces, el vómito y el fluido menstrual son expulsadospor nuestros orificios-nariz, oídos, boca, genitales y ano- minando nuestra ilusión de corporalidad cerrada.According to Grosz, "they attack the aspiration of the subject to autonomy and the self".[5] When transgressing the edges of the skin, the secretions contradict the reassuring fiction that we are autonomous beings in full control of life, disturbing reminders that we are vulnerable, mortal material beings, made of flesh and blood.
This abject has been used toperpetuate gender gaps, racism and homophobia.Fluid abjects are implicitly associated with femininity, motherhood,pregnancy and menstruation, reinforcing the idea that women, as are the body fluids they expel, are dirty andpotentiallypolluting.Paradoxically, until the twentieth century, men, unlike women, were allowed to urinate in the streets and semen, a substance that has all the characteristics of the abject, is celebrated in the costume talks and inpornography.In another line, the racists consider that non -white skin is dirty.The American supremacists of US justified Jim Crow's laws that ordered the segregation ofpublic spaces, including "color" baths, arguing that African Americans exposed whites to contagious diseases such as syphilis and that threatened to contaminate thepurity of theWhite race through miscegenation [6].Non-hetero-normative eroticism was listed in the same way as a threat to many heterosexual men.This deep fear materialized during the AIDS crisis, when homosexual men wereportrayed as carriers of diseases that threatened to expose heterosexuals to infectious body fluids inpublic bathrooms.
Modernidad
Historians like Ian Miller have shown that feelings of shame triggered by body substances date back to antiquity.[7] It is not surprising that the reputation of the bathrooms, and inparticular of thepublic bathrooms, was tarnished.They were seen asplaces wherepeople inevitably come into contact with abject substances downloaded from their own bodies and those of strangers.In response, modern architecture came to the rescue.Architects like Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos studied the design of the bathrooms to overcome the threat of abjection.In their controversialpublications, Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos celebrated what was at that time a new technology:plumbing andplumbing accessories along with white and bright stone surfaces,porcelain or tiles.Network connected bathrooms to urban infrastructure sanitation systems allowed architects to literally eliminate bodily secretions that spread diseases andplagued theprevious European urban civilizations.
But also, modern architects linked waste management systems with aesthetics.Le Corbusier's design for the main bathroom of the emblematic Villa Savoye exemplifies how the architects resorted to these dual strategies to overcome abjection through design.[8] Modern antiseptic baths allowed users to repudiate their mortal meat and by -products through concealment.Mass -produced sinks and toilets were designed with discreetlyplaced drains to eliminate visual and olfactory evidence of waste. Le Corbusierpublicó diagramas que comparaban los servicios mecánicos de un edificio-manipulación del aire y fontanería- con los sistemas respiratorio, circulatorio y excretorios humanos.Both systems, the non -human and the human, are hidden in sight, hidden in cavities behind the skins that dresspeople and buildings.
For Le Corbusier, exhibition and concealment could be articulated.In hispublications, the architect includedphotographs of the innovative main bath.It is divided from the main bedroom only by an elevatedplatform of tiles that incorporates a built -in bathtub and a tile wall whose curvilinear contour resembles a chaise longue.When seen from the main bedroom, this sculptural set frames a view of the accessories that Corbusier treats like icons.Porcelain surfaces waterproof and easy to clean give the reassuring cleaning visual impression.Interestingly, the offensive toilet remained discreetly hidden in an isolated closet.
Hygiene is reinforced by color.White is a color associated with religious and racially and historically associatedpurity with types of buildings such as churches, hospitals and laboratories thatpromote health and well -being.According to Barbara Penner, during Le Corbusier's time, the target had explicit medicinal associations: white lime washing was applied to the walls of the toilets, septic tanks andpublic urinals throughout the nineteenth century as a disinfectant to combat cholera and cholera andTyphoid fever.In the Savoy Villa, not only the design of the main bedroom but also the main entrance is a testimony of the conviction of Le Corbusier and his companions that architecture could succeed over abjection through the marriage of technology and design: theFirst object that visitors find when they set foot in the lobby is a whiteporcelain sink.
Siglo XX
In the mid -twentieth century, the hygienic bath was conceived as women's territory.The bathrooms reinforced gender division in domestic work.The manufacturers took a lucrative opportunity to sellproducts aimed at middle class consumers.Inpublications such as House and Garden, the adspressed women to buy the latest bathroomproducts and accessories to show that they were worthy housewives capable of maintaining unprecedented cleaning standards.Mass marketing campaigns linked consumption, aesthetics and hygiene.The bath ritual on Saturday night once a week was replaced by the shower or the daily bathroompromoted as an emblem of domestic hygiene by bathroom ads.[9]
In thepostwarperiod, the media, including Hollywood films,promoted the bathrooms not only for their hygienic attributes but also asplaces of relaxation,pleasure and seduction.Seductions in the bathtub are a basic element in James Bond films such as Thunderball and Moonraker.Today, as we spend more and more time with our digital devices, sailing through the virtual space, the bathrooms have become more important than ever in the American imagination: they have been remodeled as homemade spas, retreats where we can reconnect with our being.
La desaparición del bañopúblico
The boom of theprivate bathroom coincides with the decline of thepublic bathroom.The firstpublic bathrooms inaugurated at the Cristal Palace were apopular feeling and copied in cities throughout Europe and America.However,public bathrooms, formerly considered as a mandatory characteristic of any European or American civilized metropolis of the nineteenth century, became scarce in the twentieth century.It was no longer considered an essential component of thepublic kingdom as it was from ancient times to the nineteenth century, for the twentieth century the bathrooms became a necessary evil, a concession to the biological need, a destination that we are obliged to use when not we are in home.In fact, in America the "public bath" is a wrong term: today, if it can be found, they are limited access services, available only for customers who are allowed access toprivate buildings in whichThey are: offices, restaurants, theaters and shopping centers.The few trulypublic baths that remain tend to be in transport centers and are consideredplaces to avoid: dirtyplaces, full of diseases and dangerous frequented only by social marginalized.
Lecciones Históricas- Conclusiones
What lessons can be derived from this cultural history about the design of the bathrooms?The variety of iterations that have assumed the bathrooms challenges the modernist mythprevailing that the bath is functionalistpar excellence and its design is determined by seemingly objective and natural technical,physiological andpsychological considerations.Historicalprecedents show that it is no longer necessarythat the bathrooms segregated by sex respond to a universal need forprivacy among the sexes.History shows that the bathroom segregated by sex is a Victorian invention, based on the supposedproblem that women were emotionally andphysically vulnerable and needed to take refuge in exclusive spaces for women when they ventured out of home inpublic space [eleven].
History becomes a liberating force that teaches us that the future does not have to be like thepast.It invites us to give up outdated codes and norms and replace them with new and innovative design alternatives that register the complex, fluid and intersectional nature of the race, class and gender so that the objectives of equity, diversity and social inclusion are met. Elprecedente análisis revela que algunas soluciones de diseño que aprimera vistapodríanparecer radicales-como la solución multiusuario que defiendeStalled!- simplemente reviven ideas delpasado.And in theprocess of inventing alternative futures, we can inspire ourselves in some of the great architectural examples of history.From Thomas Jefferson, American civic architecture has sought to embrace the Roman classic tradition.Why can't we learn from Roman bathrooms and invest government resources inprojects that recognizepublic baths as key components ofpublic infrastructure?Instead of treating them as unique spaces for those who go to carry out activities that teach us to be ashamedof different classes, identities and corporalities?
Grades
1.Penner, Barbara.bathroom.London: Reaktion Books, 2013.p.182.Slavoj Zizek on "Toilets and ideology," www.Youtube.com; The Plague of Fantasies (London: 2008)pp.4-5. Quoted in Pennerp.143.Blumenthal, Dara.Little Vast Rooms of Undoing: Exploring Identity and Embodiment Through Public Toilet Spaces. New York, London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.4.Douglas, Mary.Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts ofpollution and taboo.London: Routledge, 1966.p.35.5.Grosz, Elizabeth.Volatile Bodies.Toward A Corporeal Feminism.St.Leonard’s: Allen and Unwin.1994.p.193.6.Abel, Elizabeth.bathroom Doors and Drinking Fountains: Jim Crow's Racial Symbolic.7.Miller, Ian Miller."The Sensses.”In The Anatomy of Disgust.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard.University Press, 1997.8.Helen Molesworth.“Bathrooms and Kitchens: Cleaning House With Duchamp.”In Plumbing: Sounding Modern Architecture.Ed. Nadair Lahji & D.S.Friedman.New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.9.Lupton, Ellen and Miller, J.Abbott Miller. Thebathroom, the Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste.New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992.10.Baldwin, Peter C.“Public Privacy: Restrooms in American Cities 1869–1932” Journal of Social History.Volume 48. No 2 (2014)p.264-288.eleven.Kogan, Terry.2007.“Sex-Separation in Public Restrooms: Law Architecture, and Gender.”Michigan Journal of Law.
