Sex--Oh sorry, 'eternal luxury'--in the Bathroom!

This is both ridiculous and wonderful. What a fortunate intersection of two of my interests: bathrooms and sex(-iness).

Originally from The Design Blog, in a post written by Asmita Prasad: "Luxury Bathtub from Caijou Le Grand Queen - World’s first Luxury Bathtub from Caijou"

Check this out. Not only do you get a prehistoric specimen in which to wash your junk, you also become (or acquire?) some hot chiseled bods.

"Crafted in the shape of the Indonesian “bangka” canoes, the Le Grand Queen Bathtub is designed to give users a unique perspective on the history of our planet and the wonders that the interaction of various material, life forms and elements have had on the creation of these mini wonders that we have inherited today.

The petrified wood used in making this luxury bath tub is said to be over 180-million years old- a truly stunning number. What’s even more staggering is that the super-rare material took a 200-strong team over 600,000 hours to dig in the most perilous terrain in Indonesia."

Behold!



No, but derision aside, I'm all for unusually designed bathtubs. I'll be the first to admit that I think it's preposterous that we spend tons of time, energy, money thinking about ways to beautify furniture. And thanks to places like Ikea, sometimes well-designed furniture can also be acquired at affordable prices. But, truly unusual bathrooms are pretty much out of reach for everyone except the mega-millionaires. Who look like these guys in the picture, by the way.

So, you might be thinking, 'fixtures in the bathroom need to be devoid of fashion because they are installed and immovable, so therefore have to weather many years of changes in taste.' Yes. But that hasn't stopped us in the kitchen. For some reason I think the idea of beautifying the crapping and washing zone is a little too taboo for us. And I'm sure some designer somewhere would love to create an easily personalized and changed set of parts for building one's bathroom. Is anyone else seeing a modular kit?

One more possibly incoherent note about this post: it's a perfect example of something that I hate and love about design blogs. "Over 180 million years old"!? I don't even know what that means. How can we be talking about a bathtub. This is just too alien. So many design posts showcase these contrived and often sort of alienating images of beautiful things. These things do not have real meaning or value other than being beautiful and transportive. It's like a PR wet dream. And in any case they are targeted at the rich. Why should only the rich have access to beauty? This is something that I often think about. More on that another time.

Words on Walls: Pen or Paintbrush?

The thought recently occurred to me that I should take stock of some of the themes in this blog. That's a project that I'm not going to take on right now, but I have a feeling that when I get around to it, graffiti is going to be an important element.

In theory I like the idea of increasing a user's investment in the space by allowing them to personalize it. And to transcend the boundaries of this private space by leaving messages for others. And I also find the doodle art aesthetic appealing. It seems to me that often when users are allowed to (or defacto allowed in that they are not prevented from) deface the walls, they usually end up writing vaguely asinine and sentimental statements. One such example, brought to you from Williamsburg, New York:




Or another vaguely mystical attempt at wit, perhaps?






Well the meta-analytic sentiment is sort of deep, if you're given to intellectualizing things. As I am. And then with the sheep pun... that's just great. Then again, if the scribbles enhance the general aesthetic of the space, then it shouldn't really matter what they says since they sort of just operate as ornamentation.










I was recently in a bathroom in Burlington, Vermont and the painted walls had this delightful hand-drawn style. I feell like this is placed nicely in dialogue with graffiti because it could be said to have a similar naive--day I say, doodled?--aesthetic, without insinuating that it's unsanctioned in any way.





Perhaps there could be a middle ground? A toilet where there's paint buckets and aprons lining the walls and you get a chance to doodle a bit? Without having a fine tipped sharpie at your disposal, perhaps the outcome will not be inane commentary about love and drug use. Maybe it'll be more insightful, surprising, entertaining? This seems like a job for the Doodlers Anonymous.



Ok guys, want to team up? I'll meet you in the bathroom.