Tales from the toilet

A model dressed as Empress Elisabeth of Austria poses next to the Monarch's toilet. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

The smallest room in the house has a big history, as Zhang Kun discovers.

The flush toilet is one of the most important inventions in the history of human civilization, yet it is often taken for granted. In fact, many people don't think about their toilet at all - until it is broken.

If you have ever been tempted to run away after clogging the toilet in someone else's house, you will have perhaps a small understanding of how different life must have been when you could not dispose of your waste with the push of a button.

A visit to the Roca Shanghai Gallery will show you the evolution of sanitary products in the past 200 years, from the time when a bath was luxury to a futuristic toilet that reuses water from the hand-wash basin.

One of the largest producers of bathroom appliances in the world today, Roca opened its Shanghai gallery in September. It is their fifth space worldwide after Barcelona, Lisbon, London and Madrid.

The exhibition, The Bathroom: A Historical Retrospective, is the first event in the Shanghai gallery, which is located in Xujiahui on Caoxi Road North.

Library, designed as a stack of books, is the oldest of the exhibits. It's a pedestal pan in disguise, designed to blend in with other furniture in rooms and chambers. It illustrates how "unspeakable" the daily necessity was in the 18th century.

It was not until the 19th century when modern concepts of sanitary and bathroom wares began to emerge. At that time, people used to shout out at passers-by on the street outside their house, warning them that human waste was about to pour down.

Gradually, people began to figure out the connection between water and hygiene. Doctors and psychiatrists used to prescribe hot baths for hysterical patients, believing warm water would soothe the nerves and relax the body.