The Turkish Bath, Its Design and ConstructionAllsop, Robert Owen
Science
The Turkish Bath, Its Design and Construction
Allsop, Robert Owen
Baths, Turkish
The work of the upholsterer in fitting up a Turkish bath comprises the
complete furnishing of the cooling room with couches, lounges, ottomans,
carpets, mats, and any chairs and tables that may be required, besides
the usual furniture common to all rooms. In the sudatory chambers may be
required easy chairs of peculiar construction, with stretched canvas
seats; in some cases movable wooden benches in lieu of fixed
marble-topped ones; and any carpeting, matting, felt for benches,
curtains (if any), and Indian matting for dadoes. These are the
principal requirements that need consideration, the remaining furnishing
of subordinate apartments being, of course, of commonplace and ordinary
description. The refreshment department requires possibly a
coffee-maker, refrigerator, ice-box, and shelf fittings; but, as a
general rule, no arrangements for actual cooking.
The cooling room couches are usually made 6 ft. by 2 ft.; but 6 ft. 6
in. by 2 ft. 6 in. is a more liberal allowance. They should be made of
polished wood, strongly framed, stuffed with horsehair and covered with
a red Turkey twill, as at A, Fig. 21. Where divans are adopted, on the
Eastern model, the benches must be framed of wood, permanently fixed,
and covered with mattresses kept in their places by a wooden fillet, as
Fig. 20. Above the couch thus formed it is well to stretch a dado of
Indian matting, affixed above to a moulded rail.
The carpets employed in the cooling room should be soft to the tread.
Nothing, of course, equals a Persian or Turkey carpet, and one or the
other should be provided when their cost can be afforded. A rich carpet
adds greatly to the effect of the room. In cases where a polished wood
floor is adopted and shown, soft durable matting or strips of carpet
must be placed along any routes, such as from and to the hot rooms and
the boot-room, by the sides of couches, to lounges and tables,
&c.--anywhere, in fact, where the bather may require to tread. Anything
in the nature of fastenings likely, by any possibility, to injure the
feet, must be carefully avoided.
A table or two for books, papers, magazines, &c., should be provided in
the cooling room. The provision of lounges, &c., must depend upon the
design of the room, and whether nooks or angles are available for their
accommodation. Little wooden or metal tripod tables must be placed by
the heads of the couches (Fig. 21, B).
[Illustration: FIG. 20.
Section of Benches in Hot Rooms and in Cooling Room Divans.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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