Nederlands

The Bathhouse

Bath Culture in the East and the West

1996, Wereldmuseum Rotterdam,
The Netherlands

The Bathhouse

Description

Family exhibition about the Roman, Islamic and Dutch bath cultures.
While washing and bathing were strongly discouraged in Europe in the Middle Ages, there was a rich bath culture in the Islamic world which had arisen out of the Greek and Roman tradition of public bathhouses. Visitors to the exhibition can experience the different atmospheres in a theatrical arrangement of Dutch changing cubicles, an Eastern Hammam and a Roman bathhouse. ‘Sound showers’ supply interviews with bathhouse visitors, recordings of bathhouse sounds, and passages about bathhouses from historic and erotic literature. An odour-trail and funny games make the experience even more intense. The highpoint of the exhibition is an interactive CD-I programme with which visitors can virtually walk round various bathhouses from today and from the past.

Werkzaamheden

DESIGN, PRODUCTION AND INSTALLATION