The fourth AquaTektur workshop of the Axor brand was held in China. Renowned architects from Asia and Europe met from September 5-10 to develop alternatives to conventional ways of thinking about water and architecture. Beijing, the cultural metropolis of China, was not only the venue for the meeting, but also the source of inspiration. The purpose of the AquaTektur workshop was an intensive debate about the affinity of water – architecture – and mankind.
Apart from workshop contributions on the topic “The bathroom in a meeting of cultures – Chinese physical culture and the global bathroom�, other issues on the agenda allowed the participants access to Chinese bathing culture. As an important pre-requisite for the workshop contributions, the participants were given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with and discuss regional, technical, material and cultural traditions in China concerning bathing.

 

As a priority the participants in the workshop investigated the interaction between architecture and water as well as culture and the bathroom, in order to discover new solutions. Here they were entering the interesting and changing field of the differences between the regional and cultural bathing traditions of Asia and Europe. Every architect tried to find his answer to the question of how to interpret these basic principles in a contemporary way with the aim of responding to the desires of a modern, urban person in a relevant and innovative way.  

 

The ideas and suggestions of the participants reflected the intercultural exchanges during the workshop and resulted in very different approaches. With his “Water Carpet�, Ernst Ulrich Tillmanns (Stuttgart), for example, put his bathroom in the middle of his apartment and therefore made it the focal point of everyday life. In his work Steve Leung (Hong Kong), on the other hand, reflected Chinese bathing culture of the past and present in order to design a very realistic, luxurious bathroom which satisfies the demands of a modern Chinese metropolis.

 

Philippe Grohe, head of the Axor brand, comments: “AquaTektur is in the truest sense basic research for Axor because the development of the bathroom is a process which constantly demands new ideas and solutions.� With the AquaTektur workshops, Axor sponsors debate among architects about different bathing cultures and habits in order to help develop new concepts and ideas about the contemporary bathroom. AquaTektur workshops dedicated to this purpose have already been staged in other cultural environments: in 2002 and 2003 in Havana, Cuba as well as in Beirut, Lebanon in 2004.

 

Participants in the fourth AquaTektur workshop: