Journey to Atocha Prémona Baños to understand how today's world works
El martes por la mañana, la confusión reina en Atocha."I have no change"."You can pay by card," responds to the clueless traveler who is responsible for the brand new prémon to the station installed at the station always shine as a patena and, already, by the way, that their mere presence prevents no one from giving them incorrect use.Pay the euro and I get a small role with a QR code that opens the doors to a new universe: the Bathrooms of Atocha Prémium version.
He acudido convencido por los parabienes que el cónsul honorario holandés Dirk Kremer destinó a los lavabos inaugurados en Sants el pasado verano. “Es la primera vez que como cónsul inauguro unos lavabos, pero debo decir que me llamaron hace dos semanas y cuando me lo propusieron no dudé ni un solo segundo en decir que vendría a hacerlo”, dijo en aquella ocasión, como recoge ‘El País’.
It's like entering the jungle, literally: there is a lot of green and birds are heard
“Es normal que un cónsul inaugure inodoros porque ir al lavabo es algo habitual y que ayuda a la gente”, añadió.If a consul inaugurates a toilet, why don't a journalist get his hands dirty?One Hundred Restrooms is the Dutch company that won the adif bid last year to give a prémicium touch to one of the most controversial points of our urban landscape.
On the other side of the lathe, the jungle, that is, a vertical garden of those so fashionable.In the prémicium toilets there is bright light, flat screens that reflect the company's messages (“Hygiene Council: Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds”) and not particularly large cubicles where little birds sound like instead of one of the pointsmore contaminated from Madrid I found me in the Amazon.At the exit, I weight and measure (free) and I take the scare of the year: weight five kilos more than I should and suddenly I realize that I carry coat, books, tuteres and camera. Pesarse y viajar está reñido.
I was prepared to get with the Baños Prémium, but there is something that has disarmed me.Perhaps a euro is a lot. Sin embargo, tengo la sensación de haber vivido la experiencia por excelencia del siglo XXI, algo que solo podría ocurrir en nuestra era.The Prémium bathrooms are the Kefrén pyramid of the year 2021.
Bathroom anthropology
“¿Un euro! ¡Joder!”.(Listened to the entrance of Atocha Bathrooms).
Me pongo en contacto con el psicólogo Guido Corradi, profesor de Atención y Percepción de la Universidad Camilo José Cela y coautor de una de las investigaciones pioneras sobre aseos públicos en España. Corradi sufre colitis ulcerosa, así que en un congreso, mientras contaba sus problemas de vientre, un catedrático le respondió: ¿y si investigas el tema? Para ello entrevistó a 155 personas con enfermedades intestinales que utilizaban con frecuencia los aseos públicos, así que me pareció que seguramente había reflexionado mucho sobre ello.
"From a selfish point of view, you have a good service for a small amount"
"I have opinions found," he replies. “Por una parte es algo terrible, porque es pagar por algo a lo que deberíamos tener derecho.But on the most purely selfish side, with my illness, you consider that you can have a good service for a small amount.Although in the long run it is negative, because if they proliferate, there will be less and less free bathrooms ”.
Corradi has repaired some things in which the curious does not realize (except one that is evident: they are not precisely easy to find).For example, that the ritual of queuing, taking ticket, passing it through the lathe as if it were the subway and even wait in the case that they are occupied is critical."You do not always carry change by hand or have to walk the card, and those 20 or 30 seconds can end in disgrace," he adds. Las barreras que exigen lo prémium lo hacen inaccesible para el que no paga, pero también dificultan el acceso del cliente apurado.
En su investigación, publicada en el ‘International Journal of Environmental Research and Public’, Corradi y sus compañeros destacaban las características más valoradas de un aseo público: intimidad, higiene o elementos adicionales como un perchero.That is, what prémicium guarantees."The first feeling is relief, because they assure you that you are closer to the desirable minimum.Over the years, public toilets have disappeared and, for example, there are in very few subway stations, something that for the researcher makes no sense.
"If we export it to other urban services, we would not tolerate it," he concludes. “Al final, lo que hace es fijar la idea de que es aceptable que haya malos baños, y que si quieres un mínimo de intimidad, higiene y usabilidad, tienes que preparar la monedita”.As taxes and death, having to use a public bath is almost inevitable at some point in our lives: “In the end it is confident that bars, shopping centers or private companies provide that service, but it would be a disaster that would stopthere are free bathrooms ".
An aesthetic experience in the toilet
"Oh, daughter, it happens if you want these are clean".(Heard at the exit of Atocha Bathrooms).
Sigo dándole vueltas al sonido de los pájaros, a que denominen 'punto de hidratación' una máquina para servirse un vaso de agua (cualquiera puede servirse uno sin pagar, todo sea dicho), a la enredadera que te da la bienvenida. Todo ello me recuerda a varias cosas: al catálogo de una tienda de muebles, a una franquicia de cafeterías de aspecto neoyorquino o a la Casa en la Cascada de Frank Lloyd Wright. Después de hablar con Susana Campuzano, directora del Programa Superior de Lujo de IE Business School, me doy cuenta de que no es causalidad.
"The prémicium is the beautification of life, the luxury of the middle classes"
“Lipovetsky ya contaba en ‘La estetización del mundo’ que no ha habido momento en la historia donde haya tal obsesión por la estética”, me explica. Los sonidos de pájaros, las hojas y los tonos madera son la expresión más clara de las tendencias biofílicas del diseño contemporáneo, que hoy lo invade todo, y que tiene su expresión más clara en lo prémium que, como añade, “no tiene que ver con el lujo, que responde a un deseo, sino con lo cotidiano, con una necesidad”.With convenience, not with inaccessibility.
Prémium was born in the United States in the seventies, first with sweets and ice cream prémium.Today, the examples are infinite: fashion (Victoria’s Secret, even Zara), furniture (Maisons du Monde, even Ikea), liquors, beers and, now, bathrooms. “El prémium es el embellecimiento de la vida, es el lujo de las clases medias, porque no todo el mundo puede acceder a un restaurante estrella Michelin, pero sí puedes ir a un Starbucks y pagar tres veces más por un café, que es algo que suele hacer el prémium, multiplicar por tres”.
Los aseos prémium de ciudades como Madrid o Barcelona son, en realidad, una puerta de acceso para el visitante, que comienza a disfrutar del ocio y el consumo ya aliviándose a su llegada."It is in cities coding," continues Campuzano."Before the 'parkings' were dark and dangerous, they are now a prémon, you enter the new ones and have beautiful colors, incredible payment machines, very expensive washing stations.It is happening in kiosks, parks, bathrooms, in everything ".
It is another example of the extreme aestheticization of the world that surrounds us. “Si antes el apoyo de la gente era la religión o la familia, lo que les daba estabilidad, ahora la estética suple todo esto”, añade la autora de ‘La fórmula del lujo’.“Because in a world where everything is fractured, insecure, sick, you want to feel good.Pretty restaurants, colorful pastries are elements of indulgence.Aesthetics is the new religion, gives you security, trust, the feeling of living in a comfortable world ”.
"We want to be in the world aesthetically, at home and in the city"
Pandemia, with the increase in health concern, has accentuated that trend."Among all sectors, the one that is best working is that of design, because everyone has decided that if you have to be at home, you want to do it in the best emotional and aesthetic way," Campuzano concludes.“With the cities, the same: hence the prémicium floods everything.But in the end it is civilization. Como decía Voltaire, ¿qué problema hay en que un hombre se planche su camisa?”.
A Granuja parenthesis
But what do Prémona baths seem to their users?Thanks to Google Maps, today we can read even toilets opinions.These are some of the ‘reviews’ that users have published about our object of study:
“Si por pagar y hacer las necesidades hay que pagar, al menos que esté limpio y sin carencias.This site is, prior payment of € 1 ”(sic).
“El sitio muy limpio, es caro pq si vas una familia tienes q pagar 1 € por cada persona.And it is assumed that in a train station you should have some public bathroom (which is not so clean...).Well, each one decides, whether or not he wants to pay...”(Also sic).
"Public?Access is private and costs a euro. No hay baños públicos en una estación de tren? Una vergüenza” (sic de nuevo).
'Los baños de Atocha, la Meca del cruising en España', en La Vida Moderna.No todo el mundo busca las mismas cosas en los mismos lugares, y los aseos de Atocha tienen también su entrada en la página Cruisingmap, donde obtienen una puntuación de 2,9 sobre 5.Comments are much more negative:
“No hay nada que hacer, han puesto tornos y se paga, te controlan.TODAY INFORMATION DAY 06/11/2021 ".
"Now they are paying, so there is nothing at all.".
It never rains to everyone's taste.
"Free is in decline, but it is necessary for society to work"
The issue of public bathrooms converted to payment also occupied one of the programs of 'Modern Life', David Broncano's humor program, in which he regretted that they were losing customs.The fragment is titled "The Bathrooms of Atocha, the Mecca del Cruising in Spain".“Do you know how that sound is when you run with flip flops?That's what Atocha baths sound, ”said the presenter. Ya no es así: los pájaros han ocupado su lugar.
The city that costs a euro
Los baños públicos prémium son, además, el signo de hacia dónde se dirigen las urbes en general y ciudades como Madrid en particular: entornos parcelados por una serie de puertas de acceso (de pago o no) que deciden quién entra y quién no, o en qué condiciones lo hace. Me pongo en contacto con Álvaro Ardura, profesor asociado del Departamento de Urbanismo y Ordenación del Territorio de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
"There is an increasing tendency of spatial self -gregation of the elites, a movement of the upper classes that are fortified so as not to come with others," he explains.“This has almost always been so, although there was a period after World War II.Madrid is one of the most unequal and segregated cities in Europe, there is a very clear division between the northeast rich and the southwest poor ”. Un ejemplo es el retorno de la puerta de atrás en los nuevos edificios de apartamentos de Londres para que los vecinos de las viviendas sociales no se mezclen con los de vivienda libre.
As the co -author of ‘First We Take Manhtatan’ remembers, the city is full of things that are not economically profitable and that would not have to be. “Lo gratis está en decadencia, porque como no es lucrativo, se orilla, pero si lo pensamos, las calles no son rentables, las escuelas no son rentables, la universidad no es rentable, pero son las cosas que hacen que funcione la sociedad”.
A business opportunity, a small pleasure for the user."It's like when the Nespresso capsules or 'baguettes' were made fashionable, it is an affordable luxury," he adds. “Operan dos cosas: la degradación material de unos servicios que deberían ser para todos, que expulsan gente hacia el sector privado, que gana con esto, y después el mecanismo de distinción de Bourdieu, cómo las clases medias y altas buscan distinguirse del resto a través del consumo”.
"Many end up resorting to it by obligation, although they would prefer not to do it."
Given the lathes, attitudes range between distrust and curiosity;At the exit, some circulate running, still thinking about their wasting euro, others (a handful of newly arrived friends in Madrid) seem happy because in the female case, the cleaning of the cup is even more critical.“There are happy people and another who reluctantly use it: the equivalent in health would be the‘ boom ’of private insurance, such as last year, when they increased by 150.000 alone in Madrid, ”concludes Ardura. “Hay gente que termina recurriendo a ellos casi por obligación, aunque por cuestiones ideológicas preferiría no hacerlo”.
The prémicium by comparison
I discover the true attraction of the Baños Prémium when I enter the toilets of the Moncloa exchanger, no longer for journalistic reasons.There is neither birds of birds or beautiful lights, but a slippery soil and the trail of the passage of several tens of busy men.They are not as dirty as he remembered, but there are two signs that reveal their true face. Uno, un candado en la máquina expendedora de papel, que nos recuerda que muchos han intentando sustraerlo a lo largo de los años.Two, a poster that prays “a clean bath talks about who uses it.Your values are demonstrated with small things like these ".
In Prémium baths, nobody asks you to be civic because there is a woman who is dedicated to cleaning the incivism marks of others. Recuerdo que Corradi ya me había hablado de los baños de Moncloa: “Son el paradigma de lo que no debe ser, están siempre sucios”.But they are also the stereotype that we have in the head of public toilet, an ugly, dirty place, full of telephone numbers that lead to strange sexual labyrinths.Places where we wouldn't want to spend much time.
Maybe that is the prémium: the new normality in a world in which the public is increasingly devalued. Lo prémium recupera la civilización, pero a un elevado coste.Not a euro, but to have built a new border.
