ABSTRACT
Historically the need for queers to take possession of a parcel of the urban environment has played a significant role in the struggle for recognition and the politics of sexual encounter and visibility. This chapter explores a distinct and compelling interpolation of the queer subject into the history of modern design made possible through a decorative form of resistance, community formation and legacy. It shows that permanent haptic interventions into these men’s lavatories have the potential to circumvent stereotypes and transform the space into a site of resistance decorated with the markings of a long-term, undeniable presence. The chapter suggests that design the men purposefully set out to memorialize the experience and expression of community while also particularizing and humanizing the effects of the modernization of interior design. Modernism in design came to Britain later than on the continent, in the 1930s when these men designed their lavatories and fostered and represented communities through them.
