The Restroom Photograph Diaries: 2015.12.10 – 2018.10.05 (The Restroom Library)

Rainer Strzolka spent years documenting public toiletsin order to capture the architectural and social everyday life in places that are normally subject to shame or disregard. He saw this as a form of socio-cultural inventory that shows how societies deal with their most intimate needs in public spaces.The project eventually ended because Strzolka considered the subject artistically exhausted. After documenting an enormous range of toilets worldwide, from magnificent to dilapidated, he saw no further insight to be gained from continuing the series.But see the existing parts of the project. ……The toilet as a place of radical equalityIn philosophy, the toilet is often considered the place where all social masks come off. As philosopher Slavoj Žižek analyzed, different toilet designs reveal different national ideologies:Functionalism: The design reflects how a society deals with the “abject” (the outcast/disgusting).Equality: Before biology, all people are equal; hierarchies and status play no role in the cubicle.In modern everyday life, the toilet is often the only space where the individual enjoys absolute solitude and autonomy.It serves as a space for contemplation (reflection) or as a refuge from the constant accessibility of the digital world.The development of the toilet is closely linked to the process of civilization (Norbert Elias).Shame and disgust: Modern civilization is defined by distancing itself from its own bodily excretions.Faith in technology: The toilet is a symbol of humanity's attempt to control nature through technology and make the “unclean” invisible.Toilets are a form of heterotopia, i.e., spaces that have only partially or not fully implemented the norms prescribed at a given time, or that function according to their own rules. Foucault assumes that there are spaces that reflect social conditions in a special way by simultaneously representing, negating, and reversing them. WCs undoubtedly belong to this category. Other examples of heterotopias would be homes, clinics, prisons, barracks, cemeteries, libraries, holiday villages, churches, cinemas, theaters, gardens, and cleaning facilities of all kinds—subjects that I have always enjoyed photographing. Mirrors have an interesting function; they are neither utopia nor heterotopia, but something in between. They can be found in every bathroom. Every WC is a Heterotopy.Heterotopias are “real places, effective places that are drawn into the fabric of society, counter-places or counterpoints, so to speak, utopias that have actually been realized, in which the real places within culture are simultaneously represented, contested, and reversed, places outside of all places, so to speak, even though they can actually be located.”Furthermore, all heterotopias have in common that their respective social significance is not static, but can change over the course of their existence. Examining the change in meaning of a heterotopia therefore means taking a discourse-analytical approach and understanding the heterotopia against the backdrop of social change.The toilet or WC is one of the great taboos of all civilized societies. A visit to the toilet is a vacation for the little man.This illustrated book shows the personal encounters of a gallery owner from Berlin with various toilets throughout Europe.Defecation, mind games, sex.How romantic such rooms look. What possibilities do they offer ... Here, your own imagination and experiences are called for.This illustrated book supports the work of Ursula Ense, Germany's foremost expert on toilet cleaning.All images shown here were displayed in January 2026 in an analog exhibition in Plauen. The enlargements were given away to visitors after the exhibition.The project was created over a long period of time using various cameras, so technical details are obsolete. Read more