Bathrooms in Copenhagen: Forced to shower in tiny toilet

With higher living standards, shared bathrooms are out and private bathrooms have become conventional. The trouble is, not all private apartments have the space for baronial size bathrooms, and this means tiny showers stuffed into small spaces.

According to Danish architect Ali Arvanaghi, many apartments in Copenhagen used to have a shared bathroom in the basement that the residents of each housing block used.

But higher living standards and changed preferences have meant that people now want their own private bathrooms. With limited space and inflexible brick walls people have been forced to make do with the small showers.

Not like Berlin

For German student of Scandinavian Studies Helle Madvig Kastner, the ‘bathroom’ is about as small as it can get. Her shower is less than one square meter, toilet included.

Her shower routine comes with an instruction booklet: Before showering, Helle needs to remove the toilet paper to prevent it from turning into a wet blob. To keep the toilet clean, she must swab the shower afterwards.

»I used to have a bathtub in Berlin«, she muses. Now she has to, literally, wee in the shower.

Danish-design disasters

»Many friends have offered me a shower at their place, but I have got used to it. A few floors down from me a mother with two children lives. I often wonder how she does it,« she says.

Suffering from stinky showers or flooded floors? Or does your bathroom stand out in its awkward originality?

Let us know. The University Post is interested in more Danish-design disasters.

universitypost@adm.ku.dk

Like us on Facebook for features, guides and tips on upcoming events. Follow us on Twitter for links to other Copenhagen academia news stories. Sign up for the University Post weekly newsletter here, and then follow the University Post on Instagram here.