Couple of years ago, I was back in New York and went to some of my favourite museums.
There is a part of Fifth Avenue in New York City that is known as museum mile with a couple of the must visit museums such as the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also known as the Met which is my personal favourite and the iconic design of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum where this toilet was housed.
It is an artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan called America which was a satirical participatory art of a fully functioning 18 karat gold toilet which was made of our 103 kg of gold.
To use the toilet usually you have to wait in line. According to the Guggenheim, over 100 thousand people waited in line for the toilet and it is guard by a security guard.
It was weird when I arrived, as I was anticipating a long queue to the toilet, so it was easy to look for.
But there was no visible queue at the museum that day.
I needed to use the restroom and I was wondering around with my friend and we asked a guard where was the nearest rest room. She (the guard) smirk and just directed us right behind the pillar she was standing at, a very inconspicuous door facing the open area of the museum.
And when the door open. It was the America. I was shocked. Nobody was using the toilet and so I just clarify with the guard if I could use the toilet as I really needed to go.
She says, sure. It is fully functional.
So I went into the single booth toilet and did my business. Took some photos and sat on the golden throne a bit to wonder how much this toilet bowl cost.
By 2019 the toilet was estimated between USD 4-6 millions.
This must be the most expensive place I took a shit.