“In a hotel, you have to create experiences, and this is really an experience bathroom.”Antonio Citterio
For the second of his two AXOR bathroom concepts, Antonio Citterio imagined a culture-themed penthouse hotel room in the Far East. While he leaves the precise location open, Citterio offers Thailand and Bali as places where the sunlight is intense and must be protected against throughout the day. His solution for such an environment is a space that, in his words, is “filtered by a semiarchitectural envelope.” In developing the bathroom concept, Citterio drew inspiration from a now-lost architectural masterpiece of his native Lombardy, the Casa sul Lago per l’Artista (House on the Lake for an Artist) by Giuseppe Terragni, a modernist architect. Imagined as a home for a painter and his family, and situated on an island of Lake Como, the design, which dates to 1933, is closed to the south and characterized by a glazed wall and a partially glazed ceiling to the north.
Citterio transposed this idea of a glass-bricked northern-facing wall and ceiling element, which gives “the perception of a connection with nature” to his hotel concept in the Far East. By eliminating direct sunlight while ensuring plentiful diffused light, Citterio, like Terragni, creates the ideal conditions for painting. But it doesn’t take an artist to appreciate the beauty of a light such as this, especially in a setting that has been designed with such attention to luxurious detail. Citterio and his team drew on their vast experience creating distinctive hotels around the world, in particular for the Bulgari group, to convey what the architect-designer himself calls the “wow” effect. “In a hotel, you have to create experiences, and this is really an experience bathroom,” Citterio explains, “an experience, but not necessarily for every day. It’s a scenography.”
One of the most striking features of the bathroom is the walls, clad floor to ceiling in precious Portoro, a marbled prize for its intense black tone and golden honey-hued veins. Citterio balances the Portoro with sliding doors in teak and a shower area lined in opulent green marble.
At the bathtub, a freestanding bath mixer, complete with slender hand shower, rises elegantly from the floor. The effect is echoed by the tall, single-lever faucets at either basin. To complete the “wow effect”, Citterio has conceived a mirrored paravent that performs the double role of hiding the WC area while showcasing the rich choice of elements - Portoro marble, green marble, warm teak and, of course, the Brushed Bronze finish of AXOR Citterio C - in the wash area. Completing the selection of bathroom fixtures are an overhead shower, a shoulder shower, a hand shower and a thermostatic mixer with shower controls. Artist or not, any guest would be delighted to indulge the senses in a bathroom such as this.
