Expulsion -A compressed evolution of the Contemporary Bathroom

Lupton and Miller describe the process of elimination comprising overlapping patterns of biological digestion, economic consumption and aesthetic simplification, where

‘the organically modelled yet machine-made forms of streamlined objects collapsed the natural and the artificial, the biological and the industrial, into an aesthetics of waste”1

Bathrooms as an architectural space did not exist prior to the 19th Century.

"When Industrial Designers tried to introduce their new designs into the sacred American living room, they were rebuffed at the front door.But they persisted and and finally gained entrance through the back door. Their first achievements were in the kitchen, the bathroom and the laundry, where utility transcended tradition” 2

At the beginning of the 2oth century modern cultures were concerned with waste, but their main focus was to eliminate it. This century we are focussed on reducing and reusing it.

In Europe, the ‘cleansing’ habits of gentile victorian society extended to the general populace in the 19th Century. During the 1860's, Pasteur’s research into microbes linked germs with the cause of disease, leading to the displacement of ‘foul air’ theories that were used to explain many illnesses.The notion of ‘contagion’ focussed attention on the association between cleanliness and health. The spread of disease does not conform to class boundaries, and it was soon understood that any person was as potential disease carrier, and a threat to the community at large, including the‘ unwashed’ members of society .This notion galvanised attention on hygiene as the front line defence against disease, and the cleaning of equipment and household fixtures was to become as important as cleaning the body

This was to have a significant impact on form and function of the bathroom, the emergence of seamless white surfaces in bathrooms a response to ‘germ theory’. Shiny white surfaces left no hiding place for germ harboring grime, facilitating the inspection of streamlined, curvaceous surfaces that were easy to clean.Obsessive cleanliness in the bathroom contributed to the adoption and development of non porous materials such as vitreous porcelain, enameled iron surfaces and laminates on appliances, walls and floors and benchtops. The obsession with sanitation drives the associated between cleaniness, comfort and therapeutic well being that embodies the contemporary concept of the bathroom as a sanctuary, a place for both physical and spiritual recovery.

Individuals are to some degree the products of the bathroom process.The technology of the modern bathroom promised to save labour ( taylorization), allowing more attention to be focussed by marketers on the maintenance of the body. From this platform the category of personal products exploded.

“Goods fall into two classes, those which we use, such as motor cars and safety razors, and those which we use up, such as toothpaste and soda biscuits. Consumer Engineering must see to it that we use up the kinds of good now merely use”3

Industrialisation had extended to most parts of society , now it had entered the home.

1 Lupton.E and Abbott Miller.J (1992).The Bathroom The Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste : Kiosk NY:1
2 Dreyfuss H.(1955) Designing For People.NY:Simon & Schuster:76
3 1932, Ernest Elmo Perkins,