Architecture of Public Restrooms
Architecture, as a ubiquitous part of our everyday environment, plays a big role in film, but renowned German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ newest production Perfect Days brings a particular typology to the forefront. The film, released in December 2023 to critical acclaim, follows a quiet toilet cleaner in Tokyo, played by Kōji Yakusho, as he goes about his job and daily routine. Along the way he discovers newfound aspects of himself, his family, and the city. The unlisted stars in the background, however, are a series of 17 designer commissioned public toilets around Shibuya, Tokyo as part of the Tokyo Toilet Project.
A typology as universal as the public restroom (we are all human, after all) is surprisingly geographically and culturally varied. This was evident during the screening I attended in Germany, when the audience audibly gasped in amazement at an on-screen character entering one facility (by Shigeru Ban) and toggling the transparent glass enclosure opaque. Full height glass in a public restroom? Unthinkable in Germany (and in most places), but quite appropriate for Japanese cultural norms; toilets are, according to the Tokyo Toilet’s website, “…a symbol of Japan’s world-renowned hospitality culture.”
tokyotoilet.jp
The project displays a wide breadth of creative interpretations of the public restroom. The aforementioned facilities by Shigeru Ban utilize smart glass walls, toggleable between opaque and transparent, to enable those outside to easily determine the condition of a stall and whether it is occupied. Another facility adjacent a public park, by architect Kengo Kuma, leans into its natural context, utilizing cedar wood louvers to blend into an undulating natural landscape and ease the transition to the park. In contrast, Kashiwa Sato’s design addresses its busy urban location at Ebisu Station, using horizontal steel louvers to blur the boundary between public and private and create a buffer from the bustling streets outside.
Elsewhere in the world, public restrooms are dictated by wildly varying social and practical realities. Restrooms in American cities are part of the ongoing dialog regarding underfunded public services. In Chicago, the third-most populous US city, public restrooms are finally getting introduced this year with a pilot program of four units. Although the design is not yet released, it can be expected that maintenance and cost will be driving factors, leading to the use of identical modular units.
In contrast, a historical reverence for American nature and wilderness has arguably led to the prominence of facilities in its esteemed national parks. Even early on, the National Park Service stressed the provision of “comfort stations” in its parks as essential. The designs balanced minimal maintenance and functionality in remote areas, acknowledging their scenic contexts with raw masonry and log construction which express an appropriate ruggedness. Even now, some of America’s more innovative designs are found along hiking trails and nature walks. Miró Rivera Architects’ design along the Colorado River Trail in Austin reinterprets a durability of material with the use of rough Corten panels and retains a connection to the nature outside.
National Park Service, Comfort Stations and Privies
In Paris, France, home of the densest system of public facilities at >6 per km², uniformity in design aligns closer with the capital city’s cultured identity. Operator JCDecaux operates around 400 units of an identical design by designer Patrick Jouin, designed to be subtle and unobtrusive in Paris streets yet retain a timeless and iconic aesthetic, in a similar vein to the Art Nouveau Paris Metro entrances. An improved second generation introduced this year retains the same aesthetic with only functional improvements.
India’s dense and busy urban centers make public restrooms a particularly attractive opportunity to provide some quiet and respite. A particular design by Rohan Chavan in the city of Thane, titled “The Light Box”, provides four female-only restrooms arranged around a naturally lit communal space topped with translucent roof panels, serving as a safe space for women.
Similarly to the Tokyo Toilet Project, public restrooms can be a public canvas for a global artistic expression. Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser was known for his uniquely colorful, organic, and biomorphic forms and primarily worked in Europe, but designed a public restroom as his sole contribution in the southern Hemisphere after moving to New Zealand in the later part of his life. The Hundertwasser Toilets in Kawakawa retained his iconic style and remains the town’s most popular attraction.
Saycheeselouise
All in all, public restrooms are certainly an outlier in architecture - they at the very least serve a human necessity, but with care can become an established and integral aspect of the urban and cultural fabric, either as wild and outlandish architectural expressions or as subtle elements of the streetscape, unobtrusive but there when needed.
Written by Marco Lau, M.Sc. Architektur, AIA
Contributor to AIA International Communication & PR Committee
