img(height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2939831959404383&ev=PageView&noscript=1")

Hot tub time machine

Words:
Jan-Carlos Kucharek

It might not be in line for a telegram from the Queen, but that’s not going to stop German bathroom products manufacturer Kaldewei from pulling out 
all the stops (as opposed to the plugs), to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding in Ahlen, Germany this year. In that Teutonic drive for precision over the decades, it has secured itself, its PR material states, more than 150 design awards, which has seen its products mixing it with the best in the industry. The confidence this has inspired has made Kaldewei bold too; take, for instance, its collaboration with Studio Aisslinger on the Tricolore Aisslinger bath. The result is a curious smashing together of a what seems to be a Memphis sideboard with the historical archetype of the claw hammer bath. How could an idea so wrong produce something that looks so oddly right? 

Latest

25 March 2025 from 9 am

RIBAJ Spec Design for Sustainability Webinar

Three outstanding extensions to Grade II-listed houses provide design inspiration and practical insights for architects looking to extend heritage buildings

Three outstanding extensions to Grade II-listed houses provide design inspiration and practical insights for architects looking to extend heritage buildings.

Win your spot on a university estates framework, convert a remote historic school building for affordable housing, design spaces that fuel creativity and innovation - some of the latest architecture contracts and competitions from across the industry

Latest: University framework

David Scott's remote 1950s West Highland folly tempted photographer Andy Stagg into a long journey north. How big would the strange structure be, when he got there?

David Scott's remote 1950s West Highland folly tempted photographer Andy Stagg into a long journey north.

Harrow Arts Centre’s new Greenhill Building combines a low-carbon CLT structure with a no-nonsense fibre-cement cladding that pays tribute to its site’s agricultural legacy, explain its architects Chris Dyson and Mathew Witts

Harrow Arts Centre’s Greenhill Building combines a low-carbon CLT structure with an agricultural fibre-cement cladding

1