BAÑOS, la escatología del diseño

A personal essay explores cultural differences in bathroom design, recounting experiences in Europe and Asia. The author contrasts Mexican bathrooms with those in Germany, where toilets have a shelf for health inspection and men urinate sitting down, and Japan, where high-tech toilets resemble spaceship cockpits. Le Corbusier called the toilet the most beautiful design object, yet his wife Yvonne covered it when guests visited. The essay critiques architectural education for asking students to reinvent the bathroom without studying historical standards like the Neufert manual, which codifies decades of trial and error. A classroom exercise inspired by Bernd and Hilla Becher had students photograph their own bathrooms from the same angle three times daily for five days, then draw every detail, including forgotten objects. They also studied 20th-century bathrooms by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, and compared them to 21st-century designs. The exercise revealed that many bathroom prejudices are recent, and that seemingly trivial decisions hide deep cultural history.