GoKawiilHow 19th-Century Paris Invented the Ornate Public Urinal
Amid deadly cholera outbreaks in the mid-1800s, Paris officials began treating public urination as a health hazard rather than a mere annoyance. After earlier attempts at hostile architecture failed to stop street urination, the city banned it outright in 1850 and installed pissoirs—elaborately decorated iron kiosks adorned with flowers, shells, and lion heads—to give people somewhere sanctioned to go.