There is no place as private as the bathroom – and still so strangely taboo. In countless home décor articles about bathrooms, with everything from classic and beautiful to minimalist and high-tech, the toilet is rarely shown. Yet it’s here that we see to our needs, read a newspaper or contemplate life.
An ancient toilet in the city of Ephesus
in Turkey.
In an era when few rooms are private – more and more, we are being monitored by tiny, discreet cameras – the bathroom will soon be the only place where we can truly be totally alone.
The toilet is not a new invention. In excavations in Egypt, a 5,000- year-old toilet was found, made of two flat stones with water running between them.
A typical dry privy found in many summer cabins in Sweden.
The modern toilet, or more precisely the dry privy, was born when people realized that a receptacle could be put under the toilet seat. For royalty, the seat was covered in velvet.
The homes of the rich often had annexes built with a hole over a man-made channel. Moats at that time served more than one purpose and were not nice to take a tumble into. Not until the early 20th century were water toilets included in the city buildings. Sewage usually ran right into nearby water sources. The environment both indoors and outdoors quickly improved, and the number of illnesses fell dramatically.
In the 1980s, the media made fun of a Swedish research paper on a topic about how a bathroom should be equipped to make it as easy to clean as possible. One piece of advice was to mount the toilet on the wall.
The bathroom at the restaurant Mirador César Manrique on the island of La Gomera has been named by the British Guardian Unlimited “the world’s best view from a lavatory.” The bathroom has a
panoramic window over the Valle Gran Rey valley.
In the 2000’s, well-known designers have created their own bathroom series, with toilets becoming increasingly exciting in terms of design. In public settings, more and more money is also being invested in exclusive toilets, which are meant to make an impression on visitors.
Nowadays toilet paper is available in many different textures, prices and colors – the latest trend is black toilet paper! Another depicts printed money.
When will the morning paper be printed on toilet paper? After all, we do sit there and read… Ladies and gentlemen, please enter the secret room.
By Per Öqvist