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Bowl Plaza is the public restroom of Lucas, Kansas, built to look like a giant toilet, with a 16-foot mosaic lid framing the entrance. Completed in 2012 by artists, volunteers and the Grassroots Art Center, it placed second in a 2014 national restroom contest.
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Bowl Plaza toilet-shaped restroom
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Approximate location · 39.063° N, 98.539° W
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Lucas, Kansas, needed a public restroom, and chose to build one that looks like a giant toilet. The result, Bowl Plaza, stands in a town HPPR described in 2022 as the Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas. NBC10 reported in 2014 that Lucas had 407 residents.
The Grassroots Art Center says the idea began with a practical need for a handicapped-accessible public restroom, designed to fit the visionary, recycled environments found around Lucas. Artists Mri-Pilar and Eric Abraham, centre staff and townspeople covered the walls in mosaic made from coloured bottles, broken pottery, dishes, tiles, toys and mirrors. The entrance is framed by a 16-foot mosaic oval lid, and curved seating in front of the building forms the bowl. Eric Abraham made the 6-foot toilet-bowl drain, a porcelain sculpture of swirling water carrying items people have accidentally dropped down toilets. Travel Kansas adds that a huge roll of toilet paper beside the building appears to have unspooled into the concrete walkway.
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WHAT TO EXPECT
A working public restroom built as a giant toilet: a 16-foot mosaic lid at the entrance, curved seating forming the bowl, a porcelain drain sculpture and a toilet-paper roll that unspools into the walkway. Volunteers maintain it and donations fund its upkeep.
ACCESS
A public restroom in Lucas, Kansas, associated with the Grassroots Art Center. In 2022 a Lucas resident described it to KMUW as a seven-day-a-week public restroom.
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