Pissoir - French public toilets help the world become more civilized

Called pissoir or vespasienne, public toilet boots were once popular in Paris and Europe. Pissoir is not only a men's urinal but also a tumultuous part of Paris' history.

The purpose of these public booths is to help men solve their needs, instead of 'peeing' on the sidewalks or the walls of buildings. Such inventions helped make Paris the most modern city in the world in the 1800s and it was common to see someone 'dealing' in public.

If you take a walk in many European cities on a weekend night, you will inevitably come across someone urinating in public. In the UK, those who do it will be fined with money but still not stopping the number of people urinating on the street. In the 1700s, France had a ban on urinating, especially the city of Paris, however, despite this ban, Paris still earned the reputation of being one of the dirtiest cities of that period.

The situation became worse when people continued to trade and live on the streets full of garbage, horse manure and smell.

The toilets are built with metal cylinders. Pictured is a pissoir taken in 1865.

By the 1850s, to make Paris the most modern city in the world. One of these modernization efforts was to start giving Parisian men a place to pee, rather than letting them pee on the nearest wall along the way.

This was finally ordered by Napoleon III to Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann.

The idea of ​​pissoirs, essentially public urinals, was first conceived by Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau in 1834, but it was not until Haussmann began installing them throughout Paris that they became popular. should be popular.

Originally, the simple cylindrical pissoir surrounded a metal core and was built of brick, with doors opening on the street side. Pissoir is known as "colones Rambuteau" (meaning "Rambuteau column").

As you can see from the photo (taken by Charles Marville, who was commissioned by Napoleon III to document his efforts to turn Paris into a modern city) there is a urinal located in the streets but covering parts of the city. sensitive, and help the city of Paris less dirty due to the smell of urine.

The image was taken in 1875.

However, as reported by Andrew Ayers in the Pin-Up Journal, the idea was started, and by the 1840s, some 400 public urinals littered the streets. Over the next few decades, outdoor urinal designs appeared more and more diverse in structure and construction materials.

Pissoir was a popular image in the 1930s, with about 1,200 spots dotted around Paris. There are some reports that they were used by the French Resistance during the Second World War as a meeting place to chat privately or leave a message for someone that the Nazis did not detect. By the 1960s, Paris had begun to get rid of these toilet booths, and in the end, only a handful have survived.

In 2019, a Smithsonianmag article said that Paris's outdoor toilets not only helped change a city but also helped overthrow the Nazi regime.

The article by author Katherine J. Wu states that, during World War II, public toilets were a rendezvous for French Resistance fighters.

To keep valuable military intelligence out of enemy hands, World War II fighting forces employed some rather inventive communication tactics. The British have carrier pigeons. The Germans have an Enigma machine. And the French had open-air urinals that were pissoir.

A man poses in front of a vespasienne (in French) or pissoir, the common name for an open-air public toilet in Paris.

During the German occupation of Paris, Allied soldiers and spies used pissoirs to deliver messages and weapons away from the prying eyes of the Nazis. At this point, the number of more than 1,000 urinals across Paris seemed like the perfect place to exchange information.

Of course, according to the article, the demolition of the Nazi regime was not the original purpose of this public work, but simply to help the city clean, more modern and not surrounded by the smell of urine. intensely.

Even in these pissoir, gay men also use it as a place to have sex. However, city dwellers complained about this, claiming that pissoir was damaging the city's reputation and image, and police began lurking outside these open-air toilets to fine them. those who violate.

Pissoir was taken in 1975.

Even so, these pissoirs are for men only. Women did not have such "luxury privileges", because Paris officials at the time considered the construction of toilet booths a waste of space, according to the Warde-Aldam article.

Since 1980, the pissoir has been replaced by a more advanced and discreet toilet system, a precursor to today's public toilets. Until 2006, Paris had only one pissoir located on Avenue Arago. Although it is no longer in much use and is mostly reserved for the taxi drivers who pass through the area, many locals are still very proud of it and see it as part of the city's tumultuous history.

Today's public toilets are for both men and women

A few years ago, Paris revived the pissoir in hopes of keeping the city's sidewalks urine-free. But the urinals - still only suitable for men - have caused fierce controversy. Many people objected, saying it was sexist and discriminatory. They argued that public peeing spots reinforced a disturbing double standard: While men were encouraged to actively expose themselves in public, women were criticized for their actions. similarly, even innocuous acts like breastfeeding.

*The photos in this post were taken by one of the most talented and remarkable photographers of the 19th century, Charles Marville. He was chosen by the city of Paris to document the city's change, in particular the landmarks built by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann.