During my visit to IMM Cologne in January this year I was introduced to Italian brand antoniolupi and their beautiful universe of bathroom products ranging from the most elegantly hidden shower heads to statement sinks and tubs that can add character to a bathroom design, to taps, mirrors and furnishings just to name a few. Their display of the Gessati washbasins designed by Gumdesign (which you can see in the first picture) caught my attention in Cologne and I kept browsing their stand to discover their wide range of carefully crafted, high quality bathroom elements, a fitting piece for every project.
The company was founded by Antonio Lupi himself back in 1950 in a small town in Florence. It started out as glass workshop, dedicated to bathroom products distinguished by their quality, attention to detail and tailor-made production. For Antonio, ‘Made in Italy’ meant industrial production with highly qualified expert craftsmen which could produce their products fast, precise and accurate – the true basics of the companies DNA until today.
After Antonio’s children joined the company in the eighties, the focus on collaborations with designers was added and since then they have been adding prestigious architects and young designers to their list of products and projects carried out all over the world. The study of what is new and attention to every form of creativity is a very important way of working inside the company, which has placed it at the forefront of process innovation, aesthetics and functional research.
They experiment to find new use of materials and use advanced technology to update the value of older materials. An example of this is the material Flumood (seen in the picture above in the left) used in many of the antoniolupi products, which was born out of continuous research. It’s ecological, compact, non-purous, uniform, non-toxic and flexible – making it an ideal material for the creativity of designers but above all ideal for customers as well, as it can be easily cleaned, is hygienic, durable and resistant.
Cristalmood (seen in the picture above on the right) – another innovation from their research – is a resin with extraordinary characteristics, designed to give lightness and solidity to washbasins and bathtubs. The material is transparent, which makes it possibly to observe the flow of water and read its movements. It’s available in ten trendy colors, which are in constant dialogue with the light.
The brand has a tailored approach to different projects and can customize their collections according to the projects’ needs, which in turn allows for experimenting and anticipating contemporary trends while also meeting he most diverse needs of both customers and designers. They consider themselves a partner of architects and interior designers to develop the most aesthetically pleasing but also state-of-the-art soliutons in both residential and non-residental spaces.
I picked out two of my favorite projects to share with you and the first one – of which you can see the pictures above – is be The Wine House by SL Project studio in Moscow. The space has a very open layout, with glass partitions separating the bathroom from the other rooms laying even more emphasis on the bathroom design. The Introverso sink designed by Paolo Ulian is a true eye-catcher in this space. In this project it was used in its entirety, but there is the possibility to sculpt the edges, revealing the raw sculpture concealed inside. In the master bathroom, the Baia tub designed by Carlo Colombo is stealing the show with its minimal lines and subtile presence next to the beautiful marble slabs on the wall.
The second project I really like is City Life, designed by Paolo Frello in Milan (pictured above) built on the 5th floor of one of the buildings designed by Zaha Hadid. The designers aimed to paying homage to the late iconic architect without disrupting her desired style. In the bathroom the organically shaped Silenzio washbasin was used, which is made out of Corian and fits the design language of the architecture like a glove.
antoniolupi has a very wide range of bathroom products, which range from eye-catching pieces like the Introverso sink, to modest and minimal items like the Silenzio washbasin, to hidden away fixtures like their Ghost showerheads. Every bathroom project has its own requirements in terms of design and functionality and the brand offers a solution for every project, big or small.
This blogpost was written in collaboration with antoniolupi , however all opinions are my own of course. If you would like to know more about the brand and their wide range of bathroom products, make sure to have a look at their newly designed website.
