January 13, 2014

FLUSH: Celebrating Baths Past & Present by renowned photographer Steve Gottlieb represents several centuries of American bathrooms and answers questions like: When were the first bathrooms built and where? When was the flush toilet invented? How much toilet paper do we use? What R&D is being done today to provide sanitary bathrooms to the billions who don’t have them?

Gottlieb says the book will interest interior designers with its wide range of designs and materials presented and stimulate outside-the-box thinking. In the book’s acknowledgements section, he expresses his respect to those interior designers who created the inspired places included in the book.

“I’m confident that designers who’ve worked with bathrooms will be intrigued and enlightened by this exploration of a subject in which they’re interested,” he said. “I believe that designers, more than any other professionals, will appreciate FLUSH, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many will want to give a copy of the book to friends, colleagues and others since it elevates their work to a higher plateau.”

Gottlieb’s goal with writing the book was to reveal the variety of bathrooms that exist and enlighten people – in the text and accompanying pictures – with information about bathrooms. His idea for the book came a while back when he made prints of bathroom photos he had taken and hung them in the bathrooms of his photo workshop. He showed some of those images in his multimedia presentations, which generated a lot of interest. 

“It dawned on me that bathrooms are a subject that everyone is interested in – though generally hesitant to discuss,” he added. “Given the high interest [in my original photos], I thought a book showcasing a variety of bathrooms with high-quality photos could be popular…and so far as I know, no one has done anything like FLUSH before.”

Gottlieb plans to follow up his book with a second bathroom book that will cover a wider geographic range. FLUSH will be available on Feb. 15. For more information, visit www.privypublishing.com.