The art of the toilet in Japan

Smart young women at Panasonic show off the latest wares
Duncan Bartlett
(BBC)

No country takes toilets quite so seriously as Japan.
Machines with heated seats, built-in bidets and a dynamic range of flushing options are almost ubiquitous in homes and public buildings.
A poem recently published by a stressed-out salary man captured their comforting appeal with haiku-like brevity. "The only warmth in my life is the toilet seat," he mourned.
But lavatories here can do much more than keep you warm. One even sends a tiny electrical charge through the user's buttocks to check their body-fat ratio.
The master of the modern convenience is the Panasonic Corporation.
Booming market
At its Tokyo showroom, located in a skyscraper near the BBC's office, a group of smart young women, dressed in uniforms resembling flight attendants, showed me the company's latest wares.
The lids lifted up when I approached. If I stood in front of one, it took a guess at my gender and lifted up the seat as well.
There was a loo that glowed in the dark and another that had built-in loudspeakers.
With manicured fingernails, the demonstrator pushed the control panel beside the seat and gentle light classical music began to play.
Pleasant enough, I thought, although I preferred a pastoral sound effect that provided the impression one was seated upon a white plastic throne surrounded by songbirds in a springtime meadow.

Advertisements for toilets are screened on public transport
It is of course often immigrants who take on such jobs in rich countries. But foreign-born workers are rare here as only about 1.5% of the population are made up of non-native Japanese.
However, the low immigration level is only part of the explanation. Japanese people do not see cleaning as a demeaning or shameful job.
School children are trained from a young age to sweep their classrooms and scour the playground for litter.
Lorry drivers wash their trucks at the end of every day. No restaurant ever serves a meal without first offering the customer a cleansing towel.
Recently, I visited a small technology company in Osaka. The president, Mr Sugimoto, is trying to inspire his staff to work harder as recession takes hold.
The Japanese - like the British - do not seem to mind too much when comedians sink into vulgarity and joke about scatological matters
He is noted for his drive and enthusiasm and that came across in a punchy presentation which he showed me on his laptop.
It included photographs of his staff on their knees scrubbing the urinals.
His point was that in preparation for a new project, the whole team had mucked in to clean up the workplace and this was clearly a source of pride to be included in the company's publicity.
Source of comfort
But toilets can raise a smile, too. Television comedies sometimes include scenes of pranksters luring people into loos whose walls then collapse, and the embarrassment this causes the victim is a source of great hilarity.
The toilet then appeared to give a welcoming robotic smile and its seat began to glow an inviting orange colour as it heated up, ready for action
The Japanese - like the British - do not seem to mind too much when comedians sink into vulgarity and joke about scatological matters.
But there is also a dark underground trade in DVDs filmed in ladies' toilets by hidden cameras, and only last week a man was arrested for placing "spycams" in the lavatories of a girls' school.
Most of the time, though, the Japanese are happy to think of a toilet as their comfort and their friend.
The other day, while catching a commuter train to work, I found myself transfixed by an advertisement which was being screened on a TV inside the carriage.
A young girl slowly walked towards a loo, which automatically raised its lid to greet her.
The toilet then appeared to give a welcoming robotic smile and its seat began to glow an inviting orange colour as it heated up, ready for action.
Fortunately, the advertisement ended there. But not before a broad and appreciative smile broke out across the face of the girl.

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DYNAMIC TOWER: Italian architect David Fisher announces the world's first building in motion in New York. (Getty Images)

The "Dynamic Tower", a slender, shifting skyscraper of rotating luxury apartments, was presented in project-form Tuesday in New York by Italian architect David Fisher, before it goes up in Dubai.

The innovative, 420-metre building features 80 pre-fabricated apartments that spin 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column by means of 79 power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.

"This building will have endless different shapes," Fisher told reporters.

As each floor rotates independently from the other, the Dynamic Tower will constantly change its profile, in a new architectural concept that is taking root around the world.
The Mirax group plans to build a similar, 70-story skyscraper in Moscow.

"We look forward to build a third one in New York and maybe in other cities," said Fisher.

"These buildings will open our vision all around, to a new life."

The apartments, ranging from 124 to 1,200 square metres will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, and at 30,000 dollars per square metre, will cost from $3.7 million to $36 million.

Fisher said the pre-fabricated components made in a plant in Altamura, southern Italy, will allow the skyscraper to go up in record time, one floor per week instead of the usual one-per-six-weeks for similar high rises, and slash building costs by 10 percent.

He said the skyscraper, which will be completely energy self sufficient and will cost an estimated $700 million dollars to build, should be operational in Dubai in 2010.