AXOR x Starck: Celebrating a Design Partnership of 30 Years

Why has design become so important for the way we furnish our lives and organize our everyday lives? And why has design played a key role in the development of the sanitary industry in recent decades? For design to shape our perception and influence our everyday culture, it must find the right expression for a need, a Zeitgeist or a new function. Of course, this is easier said than done, because the “right” forms and the necessary functions are easier to recognize in retrospect than in the moment of the design process. Therefore, without the commitment of exceptional personalities who take the initiative in shaping this moment, there is hardly any real change in our environment. This requires designers with vision and a strong creative instinct, but it also requires entrepreneurs with imagination and courage. One of the best examples is surely Philippe Starck and AXOR celebrating the 30th anniversary of their collaboration this year.

Philippe Starck, one of the most visionary creators of our time, uses design as a creative tool to provide a service; his prolific and multiform work demonstrates what creativity can achieve when it is used to both innovate and, always with respect and humor, play with traditional patterns and norms. Today, we can see in modern bathrooms what was hidden for so long under the crust of standardized tiling and stereotypical ceramics: still a highly functional space in which high-quality materials, colors and a sensual feel are combined with modern and elegant shapes. In 1994, Starck contrasted the “wet room” with the Salon d'Eau, literally translated as the “Water Living Room”. Radical and successful, this concept completely changed the image of the bathroom.

“There are many ground-breaking ideas that Philippe Starck brought to AXOR or even to the entire industry. The two most important ones were not only to think about the object, but to design a space and, of course, to rethink the interaction between people and products,” summarizes Olivier Sogno, VP AXOR.

The Birth of the Design Brand AXOR

Until the late 20^th century, most bathrooms were functional wet rooms. The idea that you could spend longer than necessary in the bathroom because you wanted to feel good was still foreign to most people. As was the idea of wanting to personalize this space. It was precisely because Hansgrohe recognized the potential of the bathroom as a living space that the company established its own design brand, AXOR, in 1993.

AXOR built on the experience of its sister brand hansgrohe in the field of design and consistently expanded it. However, it has also developed its own approach: If you want to help shape the transformation of the bathroom, the best way to do this is together with designers, interior designers and architects. To this day, the variety of selected design partners from these disciplines with whom AXOR works successfully is unique. This is also based on the conviction that real progress is more likely to be made if all those involved are given as much freedom of design as possible and if they engage in an open, appreciative dialog. For over 30 years now, AXOR has been working with the world's best architects, interior designers and designers to develop visions of the bathroom as a living space and collections that offer a variety of sustainable solutions for the realization of personal bathroom spaces and the individual use of water.

AXOR x Starck – a 30-Year Collaboration

It all started with the Salon d’Eau, which included the AXOR Starck collection in 1994. The image of a bathroom with a freestanding bathtub, washbasin and toilet, including the faucets from this collection, and a room flooded with daylight, without tiles, and characterized by natural materials, was both a revolution and a commercial success that still shapes our idea of modern bathroom design today. The AXOR Starck collection has become an icon of bathroom design. It is still one of the most successful bathroom collections AXOR has launched to date.