Nothing makes me cringe faster than hearing a student or professional landscape architect refer to a part of their design as a water feature. The wide-eyed stares I get back from my objection beg for an explanation. This is not simple.
My understanding of water draws from the eloquent essay by Ivan Illich, “H²O and the Waters of Forgetfulness.” Locating cultural memory in the deep and contradictory character of formless water, Illich explores its history noting the cleansing and purifying properties through cultures and epochs. The critical question for the human use of water, either in the public landscape or the domestic bath, is the one that asks in what way can water in design support dwelling. If water is thought of as only the means to live hygienically in dense cities, then it becomes a commodity to collect, treat, circulate, collect, and repeat. Water management becomes a factor of infrastructure facilities, and water is only another natural resource available for human consumption. If, on the other hand, water is understood as the fundamental locus of flowing dreams, then its power to cleanse and to purify becomes part of the sustaining, choreographed relationship possible between nature and dwelling.
The safety we insist upon in public space often prevents the necessary dual character of water from being apparent. Water is both life-sustaining and dangerous. Municipal lawyers must be pleased with mist fountains and fearful of pools, but it is hard to sink the poetic imagination into a perforated stone plaza, although the kids cool off just the same. So too, bathing rituals in the home, if not omitted altogether, have be reduced to squeezing large porcelain vessels into a bathroom “suite” layout along with the toilet (for elimination) and lavatory and shower (for cleansing).
When dwelling is allowed to be an intense activity and not just an unaware series of events, then water is welcomed as a vehicle of change. In physical and mental purifying, water removes the unwanted thereby releasing what has been inhibited. It is possible for water in the public landscape to hold the collective spirit of a community through the festivals and rituals that take place there and to come to define the local culture. Privately, water for bathing sheds its association with external cleansing and takes on its power to purify. It changes the flesh through temperature and pressure. Warmer or cooler, the submerged body feels more intensely the different gravitational presence of water compared to air. When the flesh yields to the medium, the altered senses perceive a washing away that leaves behind refreshed feelings. Designing for such a possible experience is thwarted by many factors: the overly cautious lawyers already mentioned, as well as glaring light, blocked views, abrasive sounds, and distracting surfaces. Water contained in public fountains or pools, or in private baths, can transport thinking into dreaming simply by washing away all that prevents a person from being in that natural state.
Your comments about bathrooms made me think. You spoke of the "water features" of the bathroom, i.e. toilet, shower, sink, as being reduce to mere utilities, squeezed into a relatively small room. It made me think about our cultural views, or even, embarrassment, about the fact that hygiene is an issue for us.
ReplyDeleteWhy is the bathroom so often the smallest room in the house? It seems to me that we are trying to hide, or minimize the fact that, as humans, we get dirty. Even worse, we do some foul smelling things as well. Compare the size of the "Master Bedroom" to the size of the average lavatory. How much use does one get in relation to the other? How important is it to have one over the other? Common sense would lead one without cultural biases to give the room with the most importance the most prominent size. But just as water is valued less than diamonds, regardless of their unimportance, the bathroom is shunned.
I never use my bedroom for anything other than sleeping, and to be perfectly honest, I could do that on my couch. I would derive much more pleasure and use from dedicating that space to our all important daily rituals. Bathing and other water-related issues could be much more pleasurable experiences if we weren't so ashamed of them.