Undesigning the Bath

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.