Urban showers

The shower has been greatly shaped by the city as a space and the body as a host; it has been gradually moving from a natural geologically morphed territory to a highly designed functional space. Sourced from the natural spring mineral waters of the Alps at all times, the shower space in the city of Zurich is a historically designed space since its formation by the early settlers to its privatization and modernization by the bourgeois class of the city. The shower space in Zurich forms an infinite loop system or cycle whereby it is greatly affected by the city’s natural waters as much as it does directly affect them. The main spine of the first waterborne sewage canal runs through not only Zurich’s most expensive streets but Europe’s most expensive streets for retail property, Bahnhofstrasse. It is also the third most expensive worldwide with expensive cafes, shops, and banks on the ground floor with lettable property on the upper floors. A clean shower became a luxury as much as the sewage system was a luxury at the peak of its creation. These events had called for the formation for a hygiene movement in Zurich that argued for the design and construction of public baths on the rims of the river and lake that catered for the remaining 92% of the population (Chen et al. 42). It argued for the construction of a shower that was accessible and clean in order to fight the outbreaks and diseases. The shower has boomed with a high density of bath to city space. A water treatment plant has also been constructed filtering the water to the extent that it has become potable. The private shower space within the city remained in accessible until very recent times in the city of Zurich. Was that due to the water’s extreme cleanliness and the city’s strict policies to manage hygiene and waste water?