Chambre à lessive, lessivier or lessiverie are words used specifically in the

French-speaking part of Switzerland1 but specific words exist as well in the swiss-german
part (wöschhüsli, waschsalon and wöschchuchi). These are used to designate a place of
labor and for which the Swiss building legislation even requires owners to provide common
areas.This demonstrates the special relationship that the Swiss people have with the room
where the clothes washing activities take place and one can wonder why in Switzerland,
"lavish laundry rooms which move space-hungry clutter from individual homes"2 are being
built.

This aspect is deeply rooted in the Swiss culture and in the identity of the Swiss dwelling
construction. It raises questions on this often forgotten and gendered space: are these
spaces necessary for inhabitants in our over equipped buildings ? Do their evolution
throughout history denote the social construction of the Western society ? What part women
play within this evolution ?

The labor of washing clothes

Washing clothes is an action strongly related to domesticity and women social status since
the early years of Greek Antiquity. Homer in his Odyssey (VIII B.C.) already narrate about
Nausikaa, a woman3, doing what it appears to be a labor in favor of men despite her status
of princess. This explicits example describes the action of cleaning clothes as part of the
women’s duty to men and that in this case gender is more relevant than social status.
The social evolution of women had multiple impacts on the very status of the activity. These
changes, together with technological progress, have completely shaped the spatial
characteristic of the laundry rooms. From the washhouse, to the dark and wet laundry room,
to the shared and luxurious one of the new cooperatives, the space used for washing
clothes has materialised in multiple forms.

Lavoir as a domestic loophole.

In the patriarchal context of housewification4 women were responsible for housework they
had to execute for the household. This “labor of love” that had to be done after a paid job is
described by Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution as: “tasks often thought of
as “woman’s work” to be performed without pay in domestic environments”5.
Therefore, the domestic sphere used to be a place of labor for housewives where marriage
is seen as a contract giving the wife to the role of an unpaid employee of the householder,
the husband. Moreover, this marital relationship is based on a concept that Karl Marx called
primitive accumulation of capital6 where having the woman staying at home and
accumulating unpaid work was seen as a wealth indication. By keeping the wife at home, the
household becomes a place of enclosure.

1
Bossard, Maurice. “De La ‘Dzenellhire’ à La ‘Chambre à Lessive.’” (1953). Imprimerie J. Bron.
2
Beaumont, E. (2020, July 26). Communal luxury: Social housing, Zürich, Switzerland by Lütjens Padmanabhan. Architectural
Review.
3
Lattimore, Richmond, (trans. 1975). The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper & Row. p

4
Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of
Labour (Critique. Influence. Change). Zed Books, 2014. p.7
5
Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution: a History of Feminist Designs for American
Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. p.1
6
Maria Mies Patriarchy and Accumulation on a world scale: Women in the international division of
labour p.8
In the Antique Greece, women were confined in the gynaeceum7, a part of the house
reserved for them. One way to escape this confinement was to use spaces such as rooftops
or the pastas8. Therefore, spaces which are yet domestic and outside of the household exist
since antiquity but at the end of the 17th century the lavoir took this role of loophole.

The lavoir is a public infrastructure, a place for commune washing which is similar to a public
basin that you could find in most villages and cities until the beginning of the industrial
washing machinery era. Even though the lavoirs were located in strategic points of
neighborhoods and not inside houses, they were still part of the domestic sphere where
domestic labor (the duty of laundry) was performed9. While being public, the lavoir was a
space dedicated for women and “men were not welcomed in the vicinity of the lavoir, to pass
a message to their spouse they would have to signal from a distance”10.
Women had access to a domestic space which is not part of the household and a communal
place where they would meet and chat about houselife as described by Daniel Giraudon:
“Au lavoir et au moulin on entend les nouvelles”11. The lavoir became a social condenser but
also a way to question the woman’s work with the creation of laundresses, a profession
consisting of taking care of others personal lingerie.

Launderette as social paradox

With the rise of the industrial revolution at the beginning of the 18th century, cities were
growing fast. Due to the increasing number of workers in the urban contexts, a lot of effort
was put in the development of collective housing typologies12. It resulted in a deep change of
the social structure and the notion of domesticity.
Utopian socialists jumped on the opportunity to revolutionize the domestic sphere. Once
more, Dolores Hayden stated it very clearly: “All these theorists saw industrial capitalism as
an economic system which would give way to a completely industrialized, socialist society
utilizing collective technology to socialize housework”13. There was then a social interest to
have workers habitats more adapted to this social revolution but also an economical interest

7
Nevett, Lisa C. (2010). Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press. p.18
8
Nevett, Lisa C. (2010). Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press. p.18
9
Rouziès, Mélanie. Histoires passées et actuelles des lavoirs publics, (2013), Séminaire de Master, S77AM Archéologie, ville
et architecture, Tuteurs : Christian Darles, Ahmed Koumas, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Toulouse P.12
10
Lavoirs: Washhouses of Rural France, De Mireille Roddier p.25
11
Giraudon, Daniel. Lavandières de jour, lavandières de nuit Bretagne et pays celtiques(décembre 1996), CRBC. P.3
12
A History of Collective Living: Models of Shared Living, Susanne Schmid p.41
13
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution p.11
as they would be more productive with the division and specialization of industrial and
household labor14.
Looking at two of the first attempt to collective housing: the Phalancetère Concept of Charles
Fourrier or the built Familistère from Jean-Baptiste Godin, you can find dedicated places that
value domestic labor as much as the industrial labor15. In order to do so, infrastructures were
built, grouping equipment and providing space for domestic tasks such as central kitchen,
nursery and Laundrette.

Such investment related to household labor was very unique at the time and was
economically coherent. It was easier to justify buying advanced household technology for
the collective than for each individual family, as explained by Dolores Hayden: “Because this
technology was first developed at the scale suitable for fifty to five hundred people, any
group interested in mechanizing domestic work simply had first to socialize it”16 and
therefore socially justified as well: “The socialization of domestic labor provided an obvious
justification for better design and equipment: fifty private families might need fifty kitchens
and fifty stoves, but a communal family, with one large kitchen and one large stove, had the
resources to invest in additional, more sophisticated labor-saving devices”17. This aspect of
the centralized household facilities would be later pushed to an extreme.
By the end of the 19th century, patrons from higher social classes were still looking for
solutions in order to improve their workers' family life. The garden cities would introduce a
sanitary dimension to the concept of collective living by bringing back some essential
facilities, such as the kitchen, that were intrinsic to the family structure into the household18.
On the other hand laundrettes were still part of the shared communal facilities, and following
those ideologies, many projects put the laundrette in the core of their design.

14
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution p.39
15
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution p.67
16
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution p.17
17
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution p.48
18
A History of Collective Living: Models of Shared Living, Susanne Schmid p.p.123-127
The Cité vieusseux in Geneva planned by Maurice Braillard in 1932 has put the Laundrette
in the compositional heart of the project, offering a centralized location of the communal
facilities19. The laundrette is now segmented according to the labor of laundry: cleaning and
drying. The act of washing clothes is now done the same way a car would be built in a
factory. And despite its centralized position to encourage their use as meeting places for the
community, the act of washing clothes is now mostly mechanized. Modern central facilities
which were more hygienic and shortened the domestic labor resulted into a rational and
tayloristic approach to domestic labor. This would eventually go against the social purposes
of the laundrette: bringing women together20.

Laundry room as a private space

Following the reform of the central kitchen houses that brought back the kitchen to the
household, a parallel approach to the utopian socialists would bring other communal
facilities such as laundrette inside the building.
The previously centralized space is now split into multiple rooms (in the case of large
buildings) that are usually either on the ground floor or in the basement. It is no surprise to
see a document from a 1904 competition stating the need for a room dedicated to domestic
labor not located outside of the building nor inside of the household:
“If it is washed on the sink, it is poorly washed and disturbs the household. If you take it to
the wash-house, it is an expense, (...). Finally when the linen is washed, it is spread on
ropes in this small dwelling that it penetrates humidity and unhealthy mist (...)Would these
outbuildings be installed on the first floor or in the attic? There is no absolute answer to this
question. (...). In general, however, it seems that it would be preferable to establish the
laundry and dirty laundry bins on the first floor, perhaps even in the basement, while the attic
would be used for clear-span dryers and attics”21.
The laundrette thus became a laundry room and was usually characterized by a space
poorly lightened or ventilated. This loss in spatial quality would directly impact the social
aspect of domestic labor to a point where utopian socialit’s communal laundry room was
questioned: “In exchange for the considerable hygienic advantage, there is the disadvantage
of installing in the house a phalanesterian communist way of demanding collective
exploitation”22.
Following the Economical Crisis of 1929 and World War II, an obvious trend toward privacy
emerged. Indeed, the issue of collective living was barely discussed at the time and due to

19
Habitation: revue trimestrielle de la section romande de la section suisse pour l’habitat ,H.Miner, 1932
20
Marchand, Bruno. La buanderie comme espace communautaire, Habitation: revue trimestrielle de la section romande de
l’association Suisse pour l’habitat,1994 p.p.18-19
21
Le logement social à Paris: 1850-1930, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, p.p.36
22
Le logement social à Paris: 1850-1930, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, p.p.37
the urge for housing, Community Settlements would present themselves as a solution. It
would put the family at the cornerstone of domesticity and as the core of society.
In terms of typology, settlements would guarantee the domestic autonomy of the household
by definitely bringing back domestic labor into the household. This is a result of technological
advances making the washing machine more and more accessible during the 1950’s and a
will to reserve collective space to the likes of circulation areas23. Therefore, women would
increasingly be isolated in the home so they could devote themselves to the household.
Under these circumstances communal spaces were not anymore thought of integrating
women into the collective areas.
Nowadays, private laundry rooms integrated into the household are still largely used in
Western countries in many kinds of dwellings. For instance in Paris, Haussmanns’ buildings
typology used to have an attic floor dedicated to dry the clothes adjoining a room for the
housekeeper. Those long forsaken spaces are now disappearing as they are highly
requested by Parisians and rearranged into flats. In a crowded city such as Paris every
square meter counts. In this case, two possibilities remain for the inhabitant: bring back the
washing machine inside the household or go to the laundromat24.
In Switzerland the independent shared room that belongs to the dwelling seems to be a
majority. The root of this difference remains mysterious but assumptions can be made. One
possible explanation could be based on the renting system that rules most of our country.
Switzerland’s housing economic system is based on rent whereas in many other European
countries it is based on ownership. Therefore, seeing real estate companies willingly
investing on dedicated spaces is not only an economical means to preserve the building
from any possible problem that could occur due to moisture in individual laundry spaces but
also a way to make profit out of each individual square meter of the housing. Surely,
unprofitable areas, such as the basement, would then become the perfect space for laundry
as they are not suited for livable spaces and are cheaper to use than bringing additional
shafts to the apartments.25

It is also no secret that swiss people have a special relationship to cleanness and tidiness.
Having a dedicated space to dry clothes is a way to control the place where people will do it.
The lingerie would then stay inside instead of hanging on the balcony. Ironically, having our
underwear exposed to our next-door neighbor doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem
than exposing them to our next-building neighbor. This cultural particularity that has lasted
for more than 100 years is today resulting in a new type of laundry room.

Laundry room as a social alternative

In Switzerland, it is possible to observe a growing attention given to laundries in recent
years. They are no longer necessarily located in the basement next to the bunker, but can
now incorporate a space where an additional flat could have been built.
In the social housing building Waldmasterweg by Lütjens Padmanabhan, the laundry room,
which is located on the ground floor and benefits from natural light, is dressed in noble
materials, mirrors and painted patterns to establish a continuity of the communal spaces.
Oliver Lütjens said: “Just because housing is low-cost doesn’t mean it can be built cheaply
(...) But what you can do is design apartments where more people live within the surface
area”26. Therefore more space could be assigned to communal areas. As soon as one thinks

23
A History of Collective Living: Models of Shared Living, Susanne Schmid p.p.145-146
24
Interview with Prof. Bruno Marchand, 15th of March 2021
25
Interview with Prof. Bruno Marchand, 15th of March 2021
26
Beaumont, E. (2020, July 26). Communal luxury: Social housing, Zürich, Switzerland by Lütjens Padmanabhan. Architectural
Review.
about a building as a whole, common spaces become assets when not thought of as spaces
lost to private flats.
All this attention clearly indicates that laundry rooms no longer have the only role of hosting
the washing machine. These spaces are now taking back on a community role that has been
somewhat forgotten for almost a century. The reminiscence of Phalancetère can be
perceived with the new dimension implied by women’s current social status inside the
household. In Kalkbreite, Müller Sigrist even distinguishes the laundry rooms as social
meeting places, central and luminous, from the laundries, which are just additions and only
occupying spaces under the stairs.
The laundry room now even takes on this role of social interfaces more naturally than in any
program. Even in the most conservative cooperatives, that reduce meeting spaces to a
minimum, it remains one of the last shared spaces. In Peter Märkli's "Hiboux" in Zürich the
laundries are conceived as small "lavoirs" popping out of the large volume to create private
protection zones for the residents and to solve the urban layout27. This example is also
directly linked to the domestic status of the lavoir that pushes the domestic labor in the street
and yet remains part of the domestic sphere.

In order to understand that laundry rooms have become the shared space per excellence,
the example of the Min Max, Glattpark, by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin shows us an
independent room dedicated to washing clothes which is yet very different from a classical
laundry room. The proposition to locate such a space near the main circulation around the
central courtyard makes it the compositional heart of the project. By giving a central location
to the laundry room, EMI also expose the domestic labor and thus valorise it. With its
sculptural column, chandelier and an almost 360 degree view, this room seems to be the
noblest space in the project and is also a way to push social interaction. An example that
could be a model for the future and that is very far from the wet and dark space seen before.

The ritual of washing clothes

Throughout history, the space where one clean clothes had many faces. From the lavoir
which was the most socially intense place to perform domestic labors due to its public
status, through the laundrette born of communitarian socialist’s dream, to the various forms
of laundry room, there has been a drastic modification of the social and domestic status of

27
werk, bauen + wohnen 101 2012
the laundry. But what is the current status of the laundry room and how will it look in a near
future ?
The change of women’s social status inside the household as well as the diversification of
familiar patterns had a direct impact on the composition of society. Nowadays, society is no
longer considered as a cluster of families but of individuals. This evolution resulted in an
increasing need for sociability and affected the domestic labor’s status.
In the case study of the laundry room this change is materialized by a desire to bring back
the lost social dimension that was once present in the lavoir. The balance between keeping
a certain comfort found in the laundry rooms or laundrettes and the constitution of a new
social interface is made at the scale of the commons.

The notion of individuals is made possible due to economic independence. One can observe
this in contemporary cooperatives whose economic system allows for design of collective
housing as close as possible to the inhabitant's wishes. This economic system could be the
key aspect for the laundry’s future as seen with new kinds of places to wash clothes
emerging for the most in the context of cooperatives where the economical contribution from
the inhabitants inside the cooperative are usually equal. Therefore, this equality brings no
more labor compensation between members.
Consequently, the topic of participation came to occupy a more prominent role than ever in
the domestic sphere as it could also be the answer to the need of sociability. By providing
qualitative spaces for the domestic labor to the members, cooperatives allow social
interaction through the creation of rituals. In these new prototypes of laundry room they
neutralise the current opposition between sociability and domesticity and one might see
what could be a testimony of the Grand Domestic Revolution 28.

Bibliography

Beaumont, E. Communal luxury: Social housing, Zürich, Switzerland by Lütjens

Padmanabhan. Architectural Review. 2020
Bossard, Maurice. “De La ‘Dzenellhire’ à La ‘Chambre à Lessive.’” Imprimerie J. Bron. 1953.

Dumont, Marie-Jeanne. Le logement social à Paris: 1850-1930. Mardaga, 1991. p.36 p.37

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Women and Economics: a Study of the Economic Relation
between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1898.
p.p. 11-13
Giraudon, Daniel. Lavandières de jour, lavandières de nuit Bretagne et pays celtiques.
CRBC, 1996. p.3
Hayden, Dolores. The Grand Domestic Revolution: a History of Feminist Designs for
American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982. p.1 p.8
p.17 p.39 p.48 p.72 p.67 p.11 p.106 p.107 p.112
Kurz, Daniel. Urbaner Massstab: Neue Wohnsiedlungen im Zürich. Werk, Bauen + Wohnen
101, 2012. p.p.5-9
Marchand, Bruno. La buanderie comme espace communautaire, Habitation. L'habitation:
revue trimestrielle de la section romande de l’association Suisse pour l’habitat, 1994
p.p.18-19

28
Dolores Hayden in The Grand Domestic Revolution
Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International
Division of Labour (Critique. Influence. Change). Zed Books, 2014. p.7
Nevett, Lisa C. Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
p.18
Minner, H. La cité Vieusseux à Genève. société de coopérative d'habitation. L'habitation:
revue trimestrielle de la section romande de l’association Suisse pour l’habitat, 1932 p.65
Roddier, Mireille Lavoirs: Washhouses of Rural France. Princeton Architectural Press, 2003
p.25
Rouziès, Mélanie. Histoires passées et actuelles des lavoirs publics. Séminaire de Master,
S77AM Archéologie, ville et architecture, Tuteurs : Christian Darles, Ahmed Koumas, Ecole
Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Toulouse, 2013. p.12
Schmid, Susanne. Eberle, Dietmar. Hugentobler, Margrit. A History of Collective Living:
Forms of Shared Housing. Basel: Birkhauser, 2019. p.41 p.122 p.p.123-127 p.p.136-137
p.p.145-146.
Filmography

Florey, Frédéric. Devigne, Floriane. La clé de la chambre à lessive. Suisse : Alina film, 2013

Interview
Interview with Prof. Bruno Marchand, 15th of March 2021

Image Credit

1) Bibliothèque de Genève, 21P 11 15-02

Toute autre utilisation doit faire l'objet d'une demande d'autorisation auprès
de la Bibliothèque de Genève. Si vous souhaitez publier une image, vous
devez passer au préalable une commande de reproduction afin d'obtenir une
autorisation et/ou un fichier de qualité adapté à la publication.

Les demandes d'autorisation et de numérisation peuvent se faire directement

depuis le Site (fonction "Ma sélection") ou par email au Centre d'iconographie
de la BGE: cig.bge@ville-ge.ch.
Enfin, nous demandons que nous soit remis un exemplaire justificatif de tout
travail basé, même partiellement, sur les documents consultés.

2) Laundrette of the Familistère de Guise. Retrieved from:

Https://www.familistère.com/fr/decouvrir/le-familistère-par-l'image/la-lessive-au-famili
stère

3) Laundrette of Cité Vieusseux. Retrieved from: Peter Meyer, 1933, La Cité

Vieusseux, Genève,Das Werk : Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre : architecture et art

4) Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten, 2019, p134. Foto © Roland Bernath,

Zürich
OTHER IMAGES PROPOSITIONS

Laundrette of e Salford Slums 1969-1972. Retrieved from:

https://flashbak.com/shocking-photos-of-salford-slums-1969-72-54032/

Laundrette of Harpurhey. Retrieved from:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/gallery/heres-look-man
chesters-famous-bathing-7448928
Laundrette of Lavoir de Oyrieres 1829, architecte louis moreau . Retrieved from:
https://www.caue-franche-comte.fr/la-typologie-du-bati-l-architecture-publique-la-font
aine,151,35.htm?impression=1

lavoirs communaux de Saint-Lys, datant de 1911 Retrieved from:

https://saint-lys.fr/les-lavoirs/
 

 
familistère de guise Retrieved from:
https://www.canal-u.tv/media/images/centre_d_enseignement_multimedia_universitaire_c_e
_m_u_universit/le.travail.des.utopistes.cirevs.green.2014.2015._16327/le.travail.des.utopiste
s_page_74.jpg

a) cours intérieur du palais

b) salles de la basse enfance
c) salles d’éducation et d’instruction générales
d) Cours des bâtiments d’industries domestique
e) Buanderies, lavoirs et bains

Cité Vieusseux de guise Retrieved from: Prof. Hans Bernouilli, 1933, La Cité Vieusseux,
Genève,Das Werk : Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre : architecture et art