Cast-Iron Convenience

Public toilets are not the sort of domain one wishes to become associated with. In fact they’re mostly places that act as a means to an end. Their ‘hit and run’ nature means that they are perhaps overlooked as architectural spaces and their design and decoration is often limited or heavily prescribed.

I for one empathise with the loo designers out there, for it is a difficult and thankless job to create a space that is clean, functional, comfortable and even, dare I say it, attractive. But it’s not always been like this. There are plenty of well-built public toilets, many endowed with splendid Ironwork or experimental fittings – it just seems that they are now either closed down or at the other end of town. The ones that are open are usually bland and actually cost money to use. Have we resorted to beasts?

Perhaps the answer lies in the Victorian/Edwardian screen-style public toilet – once very common in Europe. I saw the one above in Essex on a train station platform and couldn’t resist trailing it for effectiveness. It was of course, very efficient. It’s façade is a little dated now, but the craftsmanship and simplicity has meant that it still here today. I love the fact that the polite request to adjust one’s dress has been cast in solid Iron. A symbolic nod to past times of enforced manners, austerity and public responsibility.

Paul Gibson’s site has some great photos and Pevsner-style chat on the design of public lavatories. Not everyone’s favourite subject matter I agree, but the next you give an angry rotarian 50p to enter a stinking, brightly lit, hell-annex, you might think again.