Notes from a London Bathroom Designer: A History of Bathroom Design

Notes from a London Bathroom Designer: A History of Bathroom Design

The Twentieth Century

Ask an elderly person who grew up in the early twentieth century about bathroom design in their youth and they will probably look at you blankly or smile at you, confused. In reality, bathrooms back then were often makeshift sheds with no running water or sewage outlets. As a result, professional bathroom designers in those days were naturally few and far between! Even well-heeled Londoners were horrified at the thought of a bathroom within one’s residence. Despite the fact that this was just a hundred years back, the difference between then and now is astonishing. Bathroom design is a huge industry, and the most famous London Bathroom Designers are very much in the public eye – on TV, in magazines, writing books. In fact, top estate agents confirm repeatedly that a breathtaking designer bathroom can boost the asking price for a home by literally thousands of pounds!

Prehistoric Times

Archeologists believe that the very first baths appeared in roughly 3500 BC. I would suggest that this actually represented the emergence of the bathroom design profession! If you go to one of London’s many historic collections, you may well find bathroom fixtures and lavatories from ancient Indian and Pakistani civilisations. Roman baths are celebrated because of their use of plumbing systems and the availability of hot, bubbly water for refreshment and health. Roman bathroom designers had to figure everything out themselves – no Ikea instructions for them!! - From plumbing of channels for hot and cold water to wastewater drainage systems to unvented storage tanks. I have accompanied some famous London Bathroom Designers to view archeological specimens and we have all been astounded at the likeness between bathroom plumbing infrastructure of today and that of thousands of years ago! Astonishing!

Renaissance Creativity

The concept of the modern “private bathroom” came into existence post-Renaissance. Londoners started to realise that unclean water made people ill, and as a consequence bath-houses everywhere started to close from the sixteenth century on. The true private bathroom is inextricably linked with the early nineteenth century, and many would argue that the first modern bathroom designers also emerged in this era. Londoners were very particular about Victorian values, and this led to a situation in which it was considered highly rude to even mention the word “bathroom” in a sentence! Cleanliness was top priority, and London Bathroom Designers of those decades chose to throw their energies into gleaming glazed enamel and whiteware – akin to the stonework used for washbasins today. Bathroom designers looked to make their bathrooms 100% non-porous, to make for easy cleansing and guard against the buildup of mould and mildew. Their goal was to provide residents with a sensation of germ-free sanitary freshness.

Emergence of the Dressing-Room

A few weeks ago one of my assistants took a call from a writer who was hoping to understand how bathroom designers distinguish between a dressing-room and a bathroom. I was honoured to be asked for my opinion on this important terminology question, and so I made sure to call the journalist right back. I told her that the word “dressing-room” started to gain popularity in about 1860. Around that same time, top Berlin and London Bathroom Designers began to include bathtubs and handwash basins in the dressing-room. They installed the lavatory in a separate room (or at least behind a hefty partition) in order to prevent affronting odours from tickling the noses of Victorian ladies as they powdered their faces. I explained to the journalist that back then not every plumber was completely comfortable with creating and levelling U-bend hardware that is a major odour control feature of modern bathrooms. But by about three decades later, this problem had largely been overcome and London’s most celebrated bathroom design professionals were willing to create concepts in which the loo was back in the bathroom where it really belonged. By the turn of the century, even the most well-heeled Londoners were ready to say a resounding “yes” to this approach!