If sex is the ultimate form of openness, then the architecture designed specifically to facilitate it could, up until recently anyway, be described as opaque. Even those more flagrant hot spots, like Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea or Japan’s ubiquitous love hotels, tended to be built to obscure their purpose, at least from the outside. Indeed, it is only within the last few decades that the notion of sex as an activity that could be displayed, or at least not obscured, has come into a more public architectural vogue. Transparency, in its boundary blurring form, is a defining characteristic of architecture for sex.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but as soon as the flames cooled to ash he promptly built himself a house for various “entertainments.” His Domus Aurea was constructed on desirable hilltop real estate that, pre-fire, had served as the site of aristocratic villas. In addition to providing an enclosed, multi-level space for drinking, orgies, bathing and whatever drugs were handy in 64 A.D., the Domus also generated an enormous amount of resentment from the displaced well-to-do.Fourier never actually got around to building the phalanstere, instead organizing closed-door orgies whenever he could find a willing host in Europe Although it did feature outdoor spaces – gardens, even a man-made lake – the interior spaces were domed and mosaiced and frescoed, preventing those on the outside from peering in. There were no private rooms per se, but plenty of spaces in which smaller groups could duck into. After Nero offed himself in 68 A.D., the embarrassing over-the-topness of his “Golden House” was mostly obliterated with new construction projects, such as the Flavian amphitheater. Those parts of Nero’s house that were hastily built over were inadvertently preserved for millennia, forming one of the oldest surviving instances of a structure designed for sex.
The communal layout of the Domus Aurea shares similarities with 18th century philosopher Charles Fourier’s imagined phalanstère, which was conceived of as walled-off, multi-winged utopia where various freedoms from conventional society could be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their particular sexual proclivities. Fourier never actually got around to building the phalanstère, instead organizing closed-door orgies wherever he could find a willing host in Europe, but his ideas did eventually take physical form in a series of utopian colonies in the United States during the 19th century, especially with his disciple Albert Brisbane’s Fourierist Society. Although the center portion of the phalanstère (or phalanx) was reserved for quiet, less sexy activites, one of the lateral wings was usually designated for play. However, the exterior remained fairly reserved, favoring a neo-classical, buttoned-up rectilinear approach. The boundary between the interior of the colony and the exterior world was very clear.
Fourier’s embrace of then-taboo sexual practices, including homosexuality, did not mean that his impromptu fetes were the only outlet for such encounters. Bathhouses, such as the Everard in New York City, were operated primarily to provide a safe and discreet meeting place for gay sex. Established in 1888, the Everard’s exterior features a classical entrance archway the architecture of sex has never been limited to single structuresand several storeys of relatively unadorned, evenly spaced rectangular windows. It’s classical verging on boring, which was its purpose: to create a safe, impenetrable haven for a type of sex that at that time was outright illegal.
Of course, the architecture of sex has never been limited to single structures, often qualifying as an urban planning challenge in its own right as far back as Sumer. However, the sophistication of these usually sequestered red-light districts began to develop significantly in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in China. In Shanghai’s Old City, the densely packed buildings of the various courtesan houses and brothels extended into the streets as well, with alleyways so narrow and erotically thronged they were called Monai Hong, or “tit-pinch lane.” The brightly painted facades of the multi-storey brothels marked a shift in sexual architecture: instead of obscuring the purpose of the district, its loud color scheme and playful atmosphere boldly attracted attention.
In Japan, the concept of the “love hotel,” or a place where couples could show up to rent a room for a relatively short period of time has been around since roughly the Edo period, but openly encouraging its guests to engage in whatever erotic activities they wanted in plain view of the crowds belowthe name didn’t come into common use until 1968, with the opening of “Hotel Love” in Osaka. Unlike the Shanghai brothels, the love hotels were and are largely designed to be centers of discretion, favoring multiple entrances, no exterior windows, and virtually no contact with the actual staff. The notion of fantasy became a prominent part of the architecture of the love hotel, with some places styling themselves after a medieval castle, others after Greek temples, and still others after what appear to be a kind of melted facsimile of the worst of Las Vegas’ outlandish color and scale choices. The interior rooms often feature a slew of odd decor and stylistic choices, such as life-size dolls of the apparently erotic-to-some Hello Kitty.
The concept of the “drive-in sex box,” where a customer drives up to an outdoor stall and has sex either in the car or in the car-wash-like cubicle surrounding the vehicle, originated in the late 1980s in the Netherlands. In 2013 a drive-in brothel was placed on the outskirts of Zurich, partly to move prostitution out of the city center and also to provide a safe, very transparent workplace for those in the sex trade. It’s perhaps one of the most intimate situations in which to see and be seen.
Except, of course, for The Standard Hotel over New York City’s high line, which as recently as 2009 was openly encouraging its guests to engage in whatever erotic activities they wanted in plain view of the crowds below, who can easily see into the hotel’s south-facing, unreflective floor-to-ceiling glass guest windows. The display of sex isn’t limited to the windows. The guest elevators feature a digital video installation by Marco Brambilla in which various naked, entwined figures writhe and grope as floors ping by. André Balazs, the hotelier behind The Standard, has been very open about his commitment to explicitly showcasing the role of sex in hotels. Balazs doesn’t have a monopoly on this idea; Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne recently received a program for the Vals Hotel that specified that the structure should be a place in which to have really good sex.
It would seem that these Western structures represent the current limit of the architectural transparency of sex in the public sphere, but who knows: perhaps if you build it, they will come.
This piece is part of Archinect's special April 2016 theme, Sex. What turns you on? Our open call for Architectural Sex submissions ends April 27 – click here to submit.
Julia Ingalls is primarily an essayist. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slate, Salon, Dwell, Guernica, The LA Weekly, The Nervous Breakdown, Forth, Trop, and 89.9 KCRW. She's into it.
16 Comments
Speaking of transparency, does anyone doubt that this entire essay was just an elaborate excuse to publish that very last sentence?
More on topic: one of the notable things about sex is that it can be done anywhere, regardless of design. Of course, comfort can be greatly enhanced due to specific environment, so... go sex designers!
Dolores Hayden's The Grand Domestic Revolution discusses Fourier and his Phalanstery concept at some length. It's not that he "never got around to building" one. Development is complicated and expensive. Add to that a controversial, utopian building program, and you've got a nightmare for attracting investment. He tried, and failed. But like many ambitious visionaries, he attracted adherents who implemented the vision partially, here and there, wherever they could.
(And I'm sort of joking above about the excuse to write that last line.)
The lion paw in the ancient city of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka .... do you what was it built for?
Damn. I have so much to say on the topic of sex and architecture but lately I'm too crazy busy doing architecture to have s........um, to talk about having sex.
get a room, archinect!
vegas, atlantic city...that's how you test the glass at your hotel room (first image)
so architecturally/interior designy fun experience story in Amsterdam once - it's architectural
Banana bar - Normally your bartender is standing behind the bar, running back and forth all stressed out.. You the patron have a good lean on the wood, which is moldy smelling. You have a good silent lean - that's what I call it. This lean is a - I'm a man with a long day, I'm putting my crossed armed elbows here and settling in - BARTENDER! . Sometimes it's copper or in nicer places its marble. No one leans on a marble bar - cologne smelling not quite gay skinny dudes may stand at a slant with one elbow watching the ladies... but it's not a place of refuge - It's a jump off to bullshitting the ladies.
In this Banana Bar case we paid $20 equivalent (no Euro at this time) for unlimited beers or Johnny Walker Black for 45 minutes. The bartenders at Banana bar (2000 A.D.) were naked women laying on their bellies most the time pulling from a tap for beer or pouring from a Johnny Walker black - that slight lean to one side, boobs hanging, pouring on the rocks or not.
in the background big Dutch bouncers with arms crossed. Crowds in groups around the bar.
In most normal bars, the crowd is essentially equally spaced or crammed, but in the Banana bar it was groups, mainly groups of men gathered around one tender. Usually the boys who have much presumed experience with naked women (or in shear gay denial) in the front howling loudest and as you move towards the back the skinnier they got and possibly less interested?
As a man into the Bar as refuge, the end of the night (the one night stand) already on the bar serving you drinks was strange.
Didn't no quite what to do. Do I put my glass down and grab the tenders ass? But don't worry, there are ways to control confused men like myself.
On top of the $20 for 45, you could get a special for $20 for 5. For those 5 minutes you could not only drink but also touch the tender on the bar. The crew I was with, random Marxist reading ex Army Ranger dude we met on train to Amsterdam, my roommate and his girlfriend (KC and St. Louis kids) and me - the still single guy - i got the 5.
Rubbing ass with my left hand and drinking beer with my right. It was a confusing moment.
Ergonomically, the bar is not a place for this with a lady. Usually it's, I'm elbowing out of my refuge to find a princess who may speak my Jim Morrison language...
So it was weird to have humans on their bellies on a bar, just saying.
Olaf, there are so many bizarre ways to talk about your post but all I can think of is the look of horror on my seriously germ-o-phobic co-workers' faces when I tell them on Monday about having a beer in one hand and a stranger's ass cheek in the other. An ass cheek that's been touched by huge numbers of other strangers! Hahahaha.
maybe the Johnny Walker Black's purpose was for sanitizing the bar top?
The only real difference between public and private space is sex. That's a line that probably shouldn't be blurred.... Last thing anyone wants is Quiznos Sex Areas.
Which is why the Standard is so odd....I'm sure the first building was built as much for the privatization (or human shame) of sex as for shelter. So that's what that movie was about... Architecture, duh.
This is the first time I have had delete my history after Archinect. I have a feeling it won't be the last.
Remember our very first time meeting Saul Goodman, on Breaking Bad? He came into the jail to (incorrectly) defend Badger for being arrested and held on masturbating in a public place, in this case, Starbucks. Puts a new spin on the whole "third place" idea of cafes!
But seriously, we're social animals, so there might be some drive to have sex publicly, but there also needs to be accepted social consideration for others in shared space.
This sounds like the plot of Idiocracy (where Starbucks becomes a place for sex acts).
Dwayne Elizondo Camacho …Five-time Ultimate Smackdown champion …Porn superstar …And president of the United States
Was President Camacho also a porn star?! I don't remember that!
It's interesting that in cultures where large extended families still live together (sometimes in the same room) sex is just ignored. It is so private that (as long as their is a social construct to this effect) even when it is had where others can see, they (mostly) choose not to.
Just an observation.
Maybe b/c sex is like VR. If you aren't participating you look like a complete idiot. Like the woman in the window.
Actually it looks idiotic while participating anyway... All that moaning and yelling and throwing yourself around. Best to keep it where nobody can see it!
I'm designing some guardrails.....think I will incorporate some dungeon rings....see if anyone notices.
On a completely different subject.....copula or cupola.... btw cupola is the nasty!
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