Undesigning the Bath

by Leonard Koren

Why are most designers (architectural, interior, or industrial) incapable of creating deeply satisfying bathing environments? Because the key metaphors of design--efficiency, slick modernity, overwhelming visual appeal--are antagonistic to a profound bathing experience. Extraordinary baths instead are complex and distinctly elemental--earthy, sensual, and animistic. They are created by natural geological processes or by composers of sensory arousal working in an intuitive, poetic, open-minded--undesign--manner.

Genres: Architecture, Design, Nonfiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Amaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me realize what a guilty pleasure indulging in the study and practice of aesthetics is and I will make sure a copy of this is always available to anyone in my bathroom.

[Walter Adamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever found yourself captured by bath culture, say in Japan or Finland or elsewhere, then you'll love this book. In my experience, that first time when you relax into that whole "earthy, sensual and animistic" bathing experience is when you start to become intrigued.

Quote: "To take a good bath properly requires being able to guiltlessly linger, hang out, and/or do nothing whatsoever".

Perhaps that's why it requires us to be on holidays somewhere, and also in contact with nature or in connection with the living feelings and sounds of the culture, for us to first transcend into a "bath experience". It's the drips, the running water, the steam, the cold, the rock, the timber, the sounds of the market or mosque outside and the transition into the present and into yourself that brings the deep pleasure.

The whole thrust of the book is all that above cannot be designed by institutionalised systems, behaviours and thinking. Good baths are not the outcomes of "design-first" and "customer experience" processes. The author lists his alternative 'bath-making metaphors" in the last chapter - discovery, making nature, and poetry.

It is a beautifully written book, even poetical in places. You can read and reminisce about places to visit or those visited. I also recommend that you read the Notes.

I've been to wonderful baths around Java - I specifically set out to do that. I would have loved to have seen more about the natural baths of Japan. He lists the bath culture countries as Finland, Turkey and Japan. I've never experienced in Turkey, but I have in other Islamic countries. I'd like to see what Turkey offers.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book. Upon reading, it I am reminded of my childhood- when I learned I didn't have to ask my mom if I could take a bath. When I would dig holes on the shore of the lake big enough to sit in as the lake would wash over me. I remember how I learned to surrender to the bath. I remember how I used to bathe with my sister and my cousin- once I was playing with my sister in the bath and she broke her tooth on the side of the tub. I remember the peace a shower brought me when I was in high school- 12 hours of work and 2 sports practices - more homework to do but first a shower, then dinner.

Undesigning the bath opens a beautiful line of inquiry to explore the human connect to bathing. I read it in one sitting by the fire - a cozy read- perfect for the moment.

[Krysta Sa · Rating 5 out of 5]

BE STILL MY HEART! Leonard Koren loves bathing as much as I do.

[Hamilcar]

I found and read this book the other day and it may be too soon to say so, but it stands among the few books that I feel define my real interests such as Careri's WALKSCAPES and Benedikt's FOR AN ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY (about which I later developed more ambiguous feelings). Koren, like Benedikt, has made a total book that begins to echo the experience he describes. This book is invaluable for its images alone, but the explanations of traditional baths and improvised bathing situations are what make this book so great. While I don't completely agree with his slightly exaggerated critique of schools of architecture, the rest resonates. His "Alternative Bath Making Metaphors" could easily be applied to any act of creation. Now I really want to meet Leonard Koren.

[Maureen Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent look at the bath and bathing, an antidote to contemporary overdesign and our love of the sanitary over the sensual. While a terrific, albeit academic, read, the images are outstanding, including old and new photos of baths in Japan, Turkey, and the U.S.