IN CONVERSATION: LEONARD KOREN
ON BATHING, ATTENTION AND PLEASURE
In 1976, he founded WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, an avant-garde publication produced in Los Angeles that ran for 34 issues between 1976 and 1981. Appearing at a moment when postmodern design was beginning to loosen the conventions of modernist restraint, WET combined experimental layouts, interviews with cultural figures, essays on bathing traditions, and close attention to the overlooked mechanics of everyday life. It later developed a cult following and remains a reference point within late-1970s design culture.
Before and during WET, Koren organized bath-related events and constructed temporary environments, exploring immersion as something lived as well as examined. In 1996, he published Undesigning the Bath, considering how design affects the experience of bathing. He is also widely known for Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, along with other works on aesthetics and material culture, including Arranging Things.
For AOIDOI, we invited Leonard Koren to reflect on bathing, attention, and pleasure.
All images © WET MAGAZINE / Leonard Koren
EVERYTHING BENEFITS FROM "SUSTAINED ATTENTION".
Q: Which everyday activity improves for you the more closely you attend to it?
A: Zazen (Zen meditation)
Q: What kinds of environments continue to reward sustained attention from you?
A: Everything benefits form "sustained attention."
Q: From your experience, what signals - especially in a bath - that design has begun to overstep its role?
A: Hmmm. Design does what design does. I would say the "good design" knows when to behave.
Q: Do rites of entry and exit matter to you in bathing — and if so, what distinguishes a meaningful one from a perfunctory one?
A: When I lived in Tokyo and had to prepare my Japanese bath a few hours before immersing myself. In that case, I was grateful that I had a lovely place to bathe at home. I think the bath and environs also somehow knew I was grateful. . . . This doesn’t exactly answer the question, but it’s the best I can do at this moment.
Q: What separates gourmet bathing from simple comfort for you — what is non-negotiable?
A: It’s all one thing. Air and water are non-negotiable.
Q: Has your understanding of “superior” bathing changed across time, place, or circumstance?
A: Yes, simply having a bathtub or shower is superior. That is, superior to not having one. And having one is all that matters (because it is you who makes your bath “superior”).
"THE MORE WE’RE IMMERSED IN THE WORLD OF MACHINES, THE MORE WE LONG FOR A WORLD THAT REINFORCES OUR HUMANNESS."
Q: When you organized bathing events or bath-related art, what conditions allowed them to succeed - for you and for others?
A: An openness to impromptu invention. Leaving lots of things ambiguous. Human kindness. Openness. Friendliness.
Q: What did shared bathing reveal that private bathing never could?
A: How much more I prefer private bathing.
Q: Do you sense a present-day need - or at least a genuine opening - for shared bathing experiences?
A: There is certainly a big boom in commercial bathing establishments. I suppose if there wasn’t a market—need?—they wouldn’t be thriving like they are. As far a platitudes go, “hi-tech high-touch” seems right. That is, the more we’re immersed in the world of machines, the more we long for a world that reinforces our humanness. And bathing does that.
Q: Which long-held assumptions about bathing no longer hold your interest?
A: This doesn’t exactly answer the question, but I no longer feel the need to bathe every day. Also, it’s not so much the bathing environment that determines the quality of the experience, but one’s frame of mind.
Q: What works (literary, musical,artistic, or otherwise) - continue to shape how you perceive and make things? Do any of them accompany you while bathing?
A: I like quiet when I bathe. And as far as inspiration from sources outside my head, it could be anything that captures my attention and makes me wonder. In other words, I’m not attached to any particular mode of inspiration. Except maybe delicious food!
Q: Name three things that currently hold your attention.
A: What my Pilates teacher tells me to do. My mediation practice. And whatever my wife and son say.
Q: From your experience, what most often interrupts immersion?
A: Obsessive thinking.
Q: What form of pleasure - physical, emotional, or atmospheric - still has the capacity to surprise you?
A: Simple things done with a lot of care. Like the perfect piece of toast. A well-made bed . . .
Q: What form of pleasure do you remain skeptical of?
A: Recreational drugs of any kind. I make an exception for an occasional cup of coffee or a piece of chocolate.
Q: Living in Rome, how do you experience the presence - or absence - of a public bathing culture today?
A: The absence of. It makes me very sad.
Q: Is there a particular bathing place - whether in Europe or Japan - that continues to stay with you? If so, why?
A: Japan. The reverence for bathing. “Reverence” meaning a sense of “holiness.” Holiness expressed in actions, behavior—not words.