World’s greatest public bathrooms
August 12, 2009
When you gotta go, you gotta go — and these toilets provide sweet relief
Visitors to the John Michael Kohler Arts Centre in Sheboygan, WI, are awed by The Social History of Architecture, by contemporary artist Matt Nolen. They carefully study the work’s iconography, admiring the bold colours and skilled brushstrokes.
But this isn’t a painting or sculpture. It’s one of six washrooms created by individual artists under the centre’s Art/Industry program, and it’s a must-see for visitors. In fact, for some of those in need, the fact that this is actually a nice, clean, and inviting public toilet trumps its artistic merits.
A high-quality public bathroom ranks high on the list of travellers’ necessities. So what constitutes a “nice” public toilet? A full stock of bathroom tissue, unclogged plumbing, and smear-free surfaces are the most basic criteria.
Tourists consider the trek to Kawakawa, a small town in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, a worth-it detour to get a glimpse of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s outrageous facilities, decorated with glass bottles and colourful mosaics.
Other great public loos incorporate cutting-edge technology. The ingenious Urilift, popping up (literally) in cities all over Europe, comes out only during the night, when the streets are filled with carousers, then it discreetly retracts into the ground.
The bathrooms at Daimaru department store in Tokyo are equipped with programmable Washlets from Japan’s leading toilet company, Toto. The functions include a heated seat and a bidet wand that spritzes and dries your backside, all to the soothing sounds of running brooks or crashing ocean waves.
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