In the spring of 1830, the city government of
Paris decided to install the first public urinals on the major boulevards. They were put in place by the summer, but in July of the same year, many were destroyed through their use as materials for street barricades during the
French Revolution of 1830. The urinals were re-introduced in Paris after 1834, when over 400 were installed by
Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau, the
Préfet of the
Department of the Seine. Having a simple cylindrical shape, built of masonry, open on the street side, and ornately decorated on the other side as well as the cap, they were popularly known as ('Rambuteau columns'). In response, Rambuteau suggested the name , in reference to the 1st century Roman emperor
Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who placed a tax on urine collected from
public toilets for use in
tanning. This is the usual term by which street urinals are known in the French speaking world, although and are also in common use. In Paris, the next version was a masonry column that allowed for the pasting of posters on the side facing the footpath, creating a tradition that continues to this day (as a
Morris column, a column with an elaborate roof and without the urinal). Cast iron urinals were developed in the
United Kingdom, with the Scottish firm of Walter McFarlane and Company casting urinals at their
Saracen Foundry and erecting the first at Paisley Road,
Glasgow in October 1850. By the end of 1852, nearly 50 cast iron urinals had been installed in Glasgow, including designs with more than one stall. Unlike Rambuteau's columns, which were entirely open at the front, McFarlane's one-man urinals were designed with spiral cast iron screens that allowed the user to be hidden from sight, and his multi-stall urinals were completely hidden within ornate, modular cast iron panels. Three manufacturers in Glasgow, Walter Macfarlane & Co., George Smith (Sun Foundry) and James Allan Snr & Son (Elmbank Foundry), supplied the majority of cast iron urinals across Britain Back in Paris, cast iron urinals were introduced as part of
Baron Haussmann's remodelling of the city. A large variety of designs were produced in subsequent decades, housing two to 8 stalls, typically only screening the central portion of the user from public view, with the head and feet still visible. Screens were also added to Rambuteau columns. At the peak of their spread in the 1930s, there were 1,230 in Paris, but by 1966 their number had decreased to 329. From 1980 they were replaced systematically with new technology, a unisex, enclosed, automatically self-cleaning unit called the . In Berlin, the first , in wood, were erected in 1863. In order to provide a design as distinguished as in other cities, several
architectural design competitions were organised in 1847, 1865 and 1877. The last design, proposed by a city councillor, was the one adopted in 1878, a cast-iron octagonal structure with seven stalls and a peaked roof, known locally as a
Café Achteck ('Octagon Cafe'). In common with British designs, they provided complete enclosure, and were provided with interior lighting. Their number increased to 142 by 1920, but there are now only about a dozen remaining in use. A similar design was adopted in Vienna, though simpler, smaller and hexagonal. They were equipped with a novel "oil system", patented by
Wilhelm Beetz in 1882, where a type of oil was used to neutralise odours, dispensing with the necessity for plumbing. About 15 are still in use, and one has been restored and set up as a display in the Vienna Technical Museum. In central
Amsterdam, there are about 35
pee curls, which consist of a raised metal screen that curls in a spiral enclosing a single urinal stall, including some two-person examples with the same details but a simpler shape. Though the design first emerged in the 1870s, an updated design by
Joan van der Mey dates from 1916. All the remaining examples were restored in 2008. of various sizes and designs, but mostly in patterned cast-iron, can still be found dotted across the UK, with a few in London, but especially in Birmingham and Bristol. A solitary example of Walter McFarlane's one-man spiral urinal remains in Thorn Park, Plymouth. A number have been restored and relocated to the grounds of various open-air museums and heritage railway lines. and
Melbourne, Australia, in the period 1903–1918. Of at least 40 that were made, nine remain in place and in use on the streets in and around central Melbourne, and have been classified by the National Trust since 1998. In recent years, temporary with multiple unscreened urinals around a central column have been introduced in the UK. A temporary for women called the 'Peeasy' is used in Switzerland. Until the 1990s, street urinals were a common sight in Paris (France), and in the 1930s more than 1200 were in service. They were famous among foreign tourists. Parisians referred to them as
vespasiennes, the name being derived from that of the
Roman Emperor Vespasian, who, according to an anecdote, imposed a tax on urine. Beginning in the 1990s, the
vespasiennes (renowned for their smell and lack of hygiene) were gradually replaced by
Sanisettes. Today only one
vespasienne remains in the city (on Boulevard Arago), and it is still regularly used. They still exist in other French cities and in other countries. VespasienneLarge.jpg|The last surviving
vespasienne, on Boulevard Arago in
Paris Vespasienne Honfleur.JPG|
Vespasienne in
Honfleur, France Vespasienne à Honfleur.JPG|Interior of Honfleur
vespasienne Urinal, Bewdley Station - geograph.org.uk - 1148738.jpg|Vintage British urinal, no longer in service Charles Marville, Urinoir en ardoise à 3 stalles, Chaussée du Maine, ca. 1865.jpg|A
pissoir on
Avenue du Maine,
Paris c. 1865. Photographed by
Charles Marville. Pisejo sur Largo de António Calém (Porto, Portugalujo) 002.jpg|Outdoor urinal in
Porto, Portugal BS Pissoir Fallersleber Tor.JPG|Restored
heritage protected public urinal in
Braunschweig, Germany Cast Iron Pissoir - Miller's Point, Sydney, NSW (7875768066).jpg|Victorian cast iron urinal in
Sydney, Australia (c.1890) Rothesay Victorian Toilets - men's urinals.jpg|Urinals in the Rothesay Victorian Toilets,
Rothesay, Bute (c.1899) ==Society and culture==