Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

My group and I visited the girl's locker room.

The uniformity and utilitarian set up of the room seemed to give an ambience of indifference to the individuality of the bodies in the space. It seemed to be more set up for the purpose of functionality than for anything else. The attitude of the architecture seemed to reflect the general etiquette of indifference and distance a person is expected to uphold in a locker room, although there were a few structures which allowed for more privacy.

The main part of the room contained rows of lockers with benches in between for people to sit and change. There were two smaller stalls off to the side for private changing. The entire space was divided in two by a wall, with a nearly identical set up on both sides. The lights were off on one side and on the other.

Behind the last row of lockers was a sauna room. The room was warm with a bench along the perimeter, it was dimly lit and I couldn't find any light switches.

Before entering the shower area there was an 8 foot horizontal mirror. The one person we encountered in the locker room was standing in front of it, looking at herself.

The shower are had 4 tree like shower structures, three of these trees did not have dividers in between the shower heads. 1 tree had dividers but no doors (unlike a stall). If someone was concerned about privacy and wanted be obscured from people's view the best spot for this would have been to be in the very back section of this one special shower tree, otherwise people showering on the sides of the tree or walking into the shower space would be able to see them, because there weren't any doors. These dividers might have been effective in minimizing your interaction with the people next to you.

In front of the shower area was a 4 foot wall, which reached just above my stomach and would have covered my stomach and lower half from immediate view if I would have used the space.

Over to the left f the shower space there was also a sectioned off bathroom area. There were 6 stalls, and 4 sinks. There was also a bench in the bathroom. There was also a mirror off to the side of the sinks (about 5 feet).