Living: Leonardo Had It Wrong

A wry revisionist's view of eating, sitting and other matters

Trendy types who party in their redwood tubs built for two or four or more may be buoyed by some notion that they are making a splash in 1980s fashion. But Architect and Social Critic Bernard Rudofsky pulls the plug on all that. "Why, in the Middle Ages," says Rudofsky, "people ate their dinner, conducted business, feuded, made love and even held wedding banquets in their tubs with the guests half-submerged in the water." Rudofsky also frowns on the chlorination, artificial scents and hygienic filters favored by contemporary communal splashers. Says...