Isak Gröndahl: I May Have Found Stockholm's Best Toilet

Stockholm's public toilets, often overlooked or avoided, are now the subject of a new coffee table book, "Flush. Toaletter i Stockholm." The book, by ethnologist Paulina Öquist Haugen and photographer Daryoush Tahmasebi, showcases over seventy facilities across the city, aiming to highlight their often-unseen aesthetic and social significance.

“

It is like opening a hot oven, but instead of hot air, I am flooded with a rotten urine smell.

Author Isak Gröndahl embarks on a quest to find these urban gems, but not all encounters are pleasant. He describes a visit to an 1890s urinal near the Stock Exchange, which, despite its historical significance, was overwhelmingly unpleasant. The experience, marked by a strong odor and swarming flies, served as a stark contrast to the book's more positive outlook.

Despite such negative experiences, Gröndahl posits that public toilets can be surprisingly social spaces. He notes that queues for bar restrooms often lead to conversations with strangers, sometimes even about the toilet itself. He recalls a unique medieval-style toilet at the former bar Snövit, which played a cheerful tune when flushed, describing it as a small miracle in everyday life.

“

Nowhere have I talked to so many strangers as in the queue for bar toilets – not infrequently about the toilet in question.

The book's exploration extends from Sigurd Lewerentz's monumental urinals at the Woodland Cemetery to more clandestine spots. "Flush" suggests that in the shared, often undignified, experience of using a public toilet, people can find a rare moment of genuine connection and equality in an increasingly fragmented society.

“

Our fragmented cyborg consciousnesses simply cross paths less and less often, but in front of the public toilet, we become equal for a moment.