Historical Urinals: The Berlin Wall in the Bathroom
When I pack for a trip to Las Vegas, I don’t usually consider bringing a big bulky history textbook. However, considering the Main Street Station Casino Brewery and Hotel’s approach to decoration and the use of varied historical materials through the building, it might be a useful addition to my luggage. While Churchill’s snooker table or bronze doors from the Royal Bank of Kuwait might interest some, the casino’s portion of the Berlin Wall installed in one of their men’s restrooms is by far the most intriguing and potentially most inappropriate pieces.
In the 28 years that it separated Berlin, the Berlin Wall had claimed the lives of over 140 crossers and injured hundreds of others, divided thousands and intrigued the world. The Wall’s structure functioned as a physical barrier to divide populations and it existed as a symbolic representation of the geopolitical tensions brought on by the Cold War. It acted as the site of numerous political events like Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech. The presence of the Wall inspired musicians to visit and create new and exciting music, such as Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie. It even inspired many pieces of art, movies, TV shows, and literature from acclaimed names like Keith Haring, Anna Funder, and even Steven Spielberg.
With all this historical importance it is no surprise that there was a desire to commercialize and memorialize the Wall after its fall. Even before the Wall officially came down and the East German government began demolition in 1990, people conducted their own private demolition. These Mauerspechte (“wallpeckers”) would come to the Berlin Wall with a chisel and hammer to take home pieces of the structure as a souvenir. At first, the East German government wanted to demolish and rid themselves of the Wall, and much of the material was disposed of or reused for building materials. However, they quickly saw the desire for pieces of the Wall and began to commodify the pieces in donations, sales, or trades. Today, there are hundreds of segments scattered across the globe. You can browse and explore an interesting visualization of this dispersal on the website, “The Wall Net” which catalogs as many large sections of the Wall as it can as they stand across the globe in both private and public settings.
The Berlin Wall lives on past its deconstruction, as gifts and souvenirs. Pieces have been bought and sold, passed from owner to owner, and wound up in some of the most unlikely places. Some end up in displays that provide context and a sense of reverence for the historical significance of these imposing concrete pillars. For a local example, you can visit the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Their installation includes a protective weather-proof barrier and an inscribed metal plaque. There is even a beautiful garden surrounding it to encourage the viewer to contemplate the significance of the Wall and the journey it made to end up in Philadelphia. While this serene display allows for contemplation on the history of the Wall, the piece of the Wall itself is somewhat fenced off and not accessible to the public. Its solitary installation in the fenced off garden does not promote a real didactic interaction with viewers outside of the special events held by the society or the employees of the society.
Other times the Wall becomes a storytelling tool to expand on the narrative of American Cold War dominance. In front of the George H. W. Bush Library at Texas A&M, this narrative is exemplified by five bronze horses jumping over rubble from the Berlin Wall. This bronze casting was created by Veryl Goodnight in 1997 titled “A Monument to Freedom’’ and placed at the library because of H.W. Bush’s fortunate timing as the President during the fall of the Wall, despite his term beginning less than a year before the Wall’s ultimate demise. This presentation and setting of the Wall certainly denotes an understanding of its historical significance, but its inclusion in Goodnight’s sculpture is more about placing the Wall as a backdrop to the triumphalist narrative of US dominance over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. This approach can provide important benefits for contextualizing the history of the Wall or its associated history with the Cold War, but even more than the preservationist approach exemplified by a museum, it is important to keep in mind the intentions of the owners and creators of the display. In keeping the intention of the owners or designers in one’s mind, a viewer can delve deeper into the significance and memory transformation that occurs when a historical past is interpolated into the present.
When the history of the Berlin Wall moves outside of the realm of education or genuine interaction with the history or aesthetic value, I tend to become more unsure of the utility or appropriateness of the installation of the Wall. While Las Vegas has its own history of gambling, tourism, drinking, and tiger-related violence, its reckoning with historical truth and complexity is not the first thing that comes to mind when it comes up in conversation. Main Street Station’s piece of the Wall acts as a tourist attraction and while a bathroom attraction might not be anyone’s main preoccupation while visiting Las Vegas, this act of enticement through the juxtaposition of historical material and irreverence being situated in a bathroom is important. While the absurdity of this installation might be part of its appeal, I view this integration of history with the commercialism of tourism and gambling requiring further investigation.
While there is a protective barrier that keeps the Wall segments from any serious harm or defacement, the casino invites guests to marvel at the graffiti of the Wall and look back at photos of the Wall as it stood, while also relieving yourself after all the drinks and gambling you can handle. Supposedly the current owners of the casino cannot explain how the Wall pieces came to be installed there, and they don’t press further because the Berlin Wall bathroom is a unique draw as evidenced by the many Vegas tourist recommendation sites that include a visit to the Wall as a site to see. While to some it may seem a playful irreverent way to incorporate history into present contexts, others — myself included — view this act of peeing on pieces of the Wall as a step too far in dismissing and inappropriately interacting with historically rich materials. There were real consequences to the division of Germany and the history of the Cold War that still define much of our contemporary political and cultural life, so placing this historically valuable wall into a bathroom crosses my personal boundary of acceptability. Beyond the Wall’s placement in a bathroom and the crudity implied by its use as a backdrop to human waste disposal, its commercialization as a tourist attraction displaces its historical significance, adding another layer of inappropriate memory work.
Maybe there is value in subverting expectations and placing art and history in bathrooms, a site that is usually associated with bodily functions, waste, and privacy. Could it be a commentary on nostalgia and the importance of not over-romanticizing the past? Maybe it’s a commodification of historical memory in a capitalist society that is more interested in profit than historical value? Whatever it may be, the Berlin Wall in the bathroom might be one of the only places I can imagine contemplating the Cold War and its victims, the aesthetics of graffiti, the value of historical memory and whether the ground is sticky from beer or urine… but unfortunately, it might be all of that and more.
