There is a camel here, a small monkey there. And which soap adorns the latest washstands? Some presentations at this year's ISH were real eye-catchers, others simply a bit drab. But all were careful arrangements.
News & Stories
The bathroom as a functional landscape
"Axor Bouroullec" is a variable system of washbasins, storage units and fixtures. Thomas Wagner talked to Philippe Grohe, grandson of company founder Hans Grohe and manager of the "Axor" brand, about bathroom landscapes, the integration of the user and the future of the bathroom.The architects and designers at Claesson Koivisto Rune in Stockholm designed the interior of the Nobis Hotel in Stockholm.
News & Stories
Selected Exhibitors at imm cologne 2011
At the beginning of every year the trade fair imm cologne presents new international home trends. We present the list of selected manufacturers to found out which exhibitors they are, and where you can find them.The exhibition entitled "Ideen sitzen / Ideas that sit well" at Hamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe invites visitors to peruse chairs, armchairs and sofas. The tour of the museum swiftly morphs into a voyage of discovery through the history of interior design, if not even the history of ideas and cultural history of recent decades.
Brothers Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec have realized their bathroom vision for Hansgrohe's Axor design line. The result of the six-year developmental study is a complex, 85-piece bathroom series. With their design approach, the Bouroullec brothers have opened up the bathroom into the living area.
News & Stories
Crisis? What crisis?
by Daniel von Bernstorff
At this year's ISH, the "World's Leading Trade Fair for the Bathroom Experience, Building, Energy, Bathroom, Air-Conditioning Technology and Renewable Energies" in Frankfurt the economic crisis did not take centre stage. Visitor and exhibitor numbers almost matched those of the previous year and an upbeat outlook was palpable - almost defying the crisis, as it were.News & Stories
The comeback of copper and limescale edging
by Markus Frenzl
"A bathroom with patina" - only recently that was still a euphemism for mold in the cracks, limescale-encrusted fittings and worn enamel. However, designers have rediscovered the central role of water in the bathroom. And with rain showers and mist generators, materials have returned to the bathroom which people had long considered unpractical and easily watermarked: Copper, bronze, brass, unsealed stone and untreated woods tell stories about use and the past.News & Stories
Trade fair à la mode - The Maison & Objet in Paris
by Vera Siegmund
"Fashion" is as good as a synonym for the City of Paris. For a long time now, haute couture has not only referred to clothing, but the exquisite and tailor-made design of one's own home is often mentioned in the same breath. The Maison & Objet in Paris is an example par excellence of this. Originally a classic specialist fair for interior decorating, tables and gift items, today it is a major event for dealers and creative professionals from all interior design and fashion branches.News & Stories
Starckland
by Daniel von Bernstorff
Italian design company Driade is celebrating its own achievements, its designers and its history.Architecture
My house has four corners
You can kill a person with an apartment, just as if it were an axe, claims German graphic designer Heinrich Zille. So how will the inhabitants of a house in Portugal fare who live in an edifice without windows, almost as if in a cave?Today, faucets created by highly paid designers are ugly, or so claims Hans Magnus Enzensberger at least. The exhibitors at the ISH were no doubt more upbeat about their products, and put much effort into presenting their new fittings, basins and everything else that belongs in a bathroom.
Architecture
Forest house
On a large plot of land dominated by pine trees in the south of Berlin there is a small wooden house modeled on an old wooden summer house and designed by the Leipzig architects Atelier St.News & Stories
Ghosts walk in the furniture cemetery
by Silke Gehrmann-Becker
What happens to furniture that has done its service? It is stored in attics, cellars and in forgotten corners. And sometimes it seems as if the old items had taken on a life of their own.The studio of Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola came up with the interior for luxurious hotel Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona. Scarcely recognizable as a hotel from the outside, inside it is all the more inviting, providing a temporary home for design enthusiasts from all over the world.
In Miami's Viceroy Hotel Philippe Starck has created a spa that flummoxed anyone expecting the reduced Zen aesthetics of many wellness interiors.




























