In your opinion why are there so many designers and so few stars?
This is a paradox. On one hand the profession of designer is fashionable at the moment. The media loves design. But apart from myself there are only a few so-called stars who make really good money, like Citterio for example.  I have not been part of this group for long, actually only since I turned 40. Before that everybody talked to me, but I had nothing to eat.

 

Absolutely, and there were three crucial influences. First of all my aim was to eliminate the designer. In this context I was focused on one idea from the very beginning. I did not want to show the product, but the water. It is my aim to locate the mathematical essence, the minimum of the object. Of course only where that’s necessary – sometimes the opposite applies and you have a design created to have fun with. But water is so precious, of such vital significance that all the bits and pieces around it are too much. That’s why we styled the Hansgrohe fitting in such a way that it could only be operated with a joystick. I can tell you that meant a lot of work! Today everybody does it. So that was the basis. The second important influence on the creation of Starck I was memory, or participation in cultural tradition.

 

The basic cultural tradition for a wash basin is after all the bucket, a form we used in the Starck I collection. The other form, which we also echoed, is a bowl filled with water placed on a table — the way people used to wash themselves in the past.  With Starck I we established a totally new model, which these days can be found everywhere. Besides, I wanted a collection which allowed objects, such as furniture, to be placed in the middle of the room rather than strung along the wall. That was the third important influence. We also applied this to the bathtub. The washbasin as well was something like a table, even if not as high as the Starck X is now. Those were the three innovative points and that is really the whole story. But what was possibly even more important, considering the result: the bathroom no longer serves as just a place for washing oneself – it becomes a place of enjoyment. And this was the real statement of the collection. I tried to express this with the name “Salon d’Eauâ€� – a lounge for water. During recent years enormous changes have taken place in the bathroom sector, for now there are very good clean products. There is almost nothing you can’t have. Cost remains the problem.

 

Well, that doesn’t exactly make me happy, but other fittings are just as expensive. I’m happy when people buy one of our fittings, because with Axor/Hansgrohe fittings I can guarantee the cultural longevity of the product, and Hansgrohe guarantees the technical quality and longevity of the product. The fitting is indeed expensive, but of very high quality. If fittings are sold which are expensive, but don’t have this high level of quality, then that is a disgrace.

 

I cannot emphasise this often enough: we have to realise product ideas, which in many cases are already in our drawers, much faster, before the competition does so. That’s the reason why we had to come up with the Starck X collection. The important thing was to create facts. We rather wanted to create an image-making collection only, a concept product which wasn’t destined to be sold. That was understood by everybody. But, a few months later everybody was keen to market the product.

 

I don’t know. There are an awful lot of copies of my furniture, lamps etc. But as regards my bathroom range it is especially bad. I have never seen anything like it. Many of the copies are so exact, that even I have to look twice at times.

 

No, copies are always trouble. The people being used here are the consumers, because they don’t get what they actually want. This is absolutely wrong. In addition, each copy sold diminishes the profit margin of the original, into the development of which a lot of money has been invested. Therefore less money is available for the further development of new products. As a result, copies empoverish the market.

 

The idea of a table with a flat basin is not new, it is 10 years old. This vanity here contains both: minimalism and some surrealism as well. One of the basins is filled with water, and the other, which does not drain, can be used for objects: cosmetics, towels, perfume bottles, sex toys…….

 

It sounds as if it has a hint of the relativity of things. I love products which allow for some space in one’s head.