“The first queer spaces of the modern era were the dark alleys, unlit corners, and hidden rooms that queers found in the city itself. It was a space that could not be seen, had no contours, and never endured beyond the sexual act. Its order was and is that of gestures.”[1]

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The two spaces which will be compared in this essay are the cruising routes in Phoenix Park, and the Boilerhouse, a gay sauna located in Dublin city. Both of these spaces are used for engaging in public or semi-public sexual encounters, providing a level of privacy and anonymity, while also exposing the cruiser to a group of people also seeking sexual encounters. It is between this duality of secrecy and community where these spaces are most interesting architecturally, and both spaces deal with these issues in unique ways.  

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The cruising routes of Phoenix Park are a leftover from historically queer spaces, where cities could provide invisible infrastructure that was simultaneously in plain view and hidden through a number of coded signals. Less widespread now, as queerness in Ireland has become more socially accepted, these routes have developed out of necessity; a need to queer existing city infrastructure to provide space for same-sex sexual encounters. These spaces were undefined architecturally but would often emerge with some shared characteristics. Parks in particular often offered all of the requirements for a thriving cruising culture to develop. Aaron Betsky defines four characteristics of cruising spaces. Firstly, it needs “conditions that in and of themselves dissolve walls and other constraints”; meaning that outdoor cruising typically takes place at night. Second, it needs a labyrinthine quality, deterring the use of the space for functions other than sex, and providing “multiple barriers to intervention or observation”. Third, that cruising takes place where the city breaks down, at its edge as a whole, or at the edges of buildings in the “stoops, porticos, windows and doorways”. Fourth, “cruising grounds have to parallel, but not be the same as, the public spaces of the city”, existing within the same space physically but separated by cultural differences and differing requirements of its occupants. 

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These routes have developed throughout Dublin city, and while many have faded out of use as the city changes, some remain active. In Phoenix Park, a popular cruising location has developed a community of men who often require anonymity. These cruisers might not be able to engage in same sex sexual activities at home, or might find gay saunas such as the Boilerhouse too prominent within the city centre. One cruiser, Peter, scribed the appeal of the cruising spot at Phoenix Park: “Gay men have this fascination of walking around because they're constantly on the hunt for something better – you know? – and they don't particularly like to stand still. They don't. So the park – that area of the park – is quite ideal because you've got lots of different trails and different routes that you can take.”[2]

Spatially, it conforms to all of Betsky’s characteristics of cruising spaces, though these are not always consistent. Peter describes how during winter many of the spots usually sheltered by leaves become much more visible, and that during rainy days some areas on sloped ground become too slippery to use. In these cases, people might have sex in a car park, or around the edge of an old sports changing room. In this way, the cruising spot is more transient, and changes even within yearly cycles and with the weather. 

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By contrast, the Boilerhouse remains mostly consistent, and despite being too prominent for some gay men, still engages with privacy and protection. Located on a quiet lane in Temple Bar, the front entrance is unassuming, with a nondescript sign and a foyer after the main door where you can wait before being buzzed in by an attendant in a small kiosk. The unassuming facade conceals the sexually liberated interior, where queer sexuality is allowed to be freed from social norms. Unlike the fully public cruising spaces in the city and in Phoenix Park, the Boilerhouse was designed specifically to be a space for sex  a formalised version of traditional cruising, it mirrors the characteristics as described by Betsky. As with other shops and establishments, it is a private space which acts as an extension of the city when open and provides a semi-public environment where its patrons can cruise with more security and enclosure than in outdoor cruising routes. The bathhouse provides spaces to wander, to gather, and more reclusive rooms and cubicles to retreat into. In the Boilerhouse these areas are obviously defined; after the changing rooms and lockers, the ground floor is open with a bar in a large double-height space, visible from the walkways on the second floor. On each floor above, the spaces become more and more compartmentalised, offering varying levels of privacy and enclosure. 

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The building maintains its semi-public condition throughout, even in the more enclosed areas. Partition walls often don’t meet the floor, and mirrors above stall doors provide a level of engagement with the more open spaces of the building. Glory holes offer connections between rooms or cubicles and further blur the lines between private and semi-public space. This arrangement provides a level of community not found in the Phoenix Park, where communication between cruisers is limited, and often reduced to subtle signals or codes. In the Boilerhouse, communication is not about identifying other cruisers but conveying more nuanced sexual preferences or interest in a particular partner. 

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While the Boilerhouse and other saunas might be understood as a natural progression from cruising in public spaces, it remains inaccessible to some as a private establishment with opening hours, entry fees, and door policies. These spaces both represent physical manifestations of queer space. They are defined by sex, and while queer architectural theory has developed beyond synonymising queerness with homosexuality, it provides an insight into the development of queer culture and its place in the development of the city. These queer spaces for sex disrupt a traditional way of viewing public space, and the gradations of privacy typically understood, where sexual activities happen in the privacy of home. Public space within the city is nuanced, and not so easily defined when considering its multitude of users, and so an understanding of queer people’s existence within the city is imperative for its development.