Undesigning The Bath by Leonard Koren

In the quarter century since its publication, and long since out of print, Undesigning the Bath has accrued a devoted following amongst designers and artists. The book presented a novel idea, coming from an artist and designer: that design is, in some fundamental ways, antithetical to the essential bathing experience. It was the culmination of a many-decade interest of Koren’s, who created bath-related events, unusual bathing environments, and paper works about bathing, including the avant-garde WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, from 1976–81.

Why are most designers (architectural, interior, or industrial) incapable of creating deeply satisfying bathing environments? Because the key metaphors of design--efficiency, slick modernity, overwhelming visual appeal--are antagonistic to a profound bathing experience. Extraordinary baths instead are complex and distinctly elemental--earthy, sensual, and animistic. They are created by natural geological processes or by composers of sensory arousal working in an intuitive, poetic, open-minded--undesign--manner.

Leonard Koren, who trained as an artist and architect, was the founder and creative director of WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, one of the seminal avant garde publications of the 1970s. Among Koren's other books are "Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers" and "Arranging things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement."

• 112 pages
• Designed by Leonard Koren
• Reissued by Blunk Books 2025
• 6" X 9", Softcover