BONNARD BATHROOM ANALYSIS

Bonnard Bathroom Analysis

In the early 1900s Pierre Bonnard painted a series of paintings of his wife Marthe in the bathroom and bathing in the tub. By looking closely at these paintings it is possible to reconstruct the setting of the bathroom, including the positioning of windows and mirrors that distribute light through the space. The quality of light and color captured in the paintings is remarkable, especially because it was a small space with ordinary white tile. This study developed architectural drawings of the bathroom interior, identifying how direct and indirect light would interact with the surfaces to create the atmosphere that Bonnard evokes in his paintings.

Understanding these paintings, both the quality of light and atmosphere as well as the time and care dedicated to Marthe’s bathing routines, has supported a number of design projects I’ve worked on and served as the jumping off point for the design of patient rooms in a proposal for the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona. Two rooms were developed: a “dark” room facing northwest that allowed direct light to only pass across the foot of the bed, and a “light” room facing southeast that bathed the room in direct and reflected light.

Related Projects: Student Projects for Health/Wellbeing, Proposal for Hospital de Sant Pau