Pissoir

[2] The urinals were re-introduced in Paris after 1843, when over 400 were installed by Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau, the Préfet of the Department of the Seine.

In response, Rambuteau suggested the name vespasiennes,[3] 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.

[4] 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.

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.

Pissoirs 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.

[1] A pissoir was also featured in a few episodes of the British WWII comedy series 'Allo 'Allo!, as a meeting place for René Artois (Nighthawk) and other members of the Resistance, and is accidentally blown up a few times, twice while Officer Crabtree is inside, and once with the Italian Captain Alberto Bertorelli.

Clochemerle, broadcast in the UK in 1972, starring Peter Ustinov and many others, depicts a rural French town's attempts to erect a public urinal.

They are commonly used for music festivals and other events, but some cities also use them on a regular basis to control public urination during busy nights.