ISH 2019
Concrete special guest
If the international star designers Marcel Wanders and Alfredo Häberli are guests at a party, they are normally undisputedly the center of attention. But at the event Stylepark and Laufen organized at this year’s ISH, they had some serious competition. And it over-towered Marcel Wanders, who is not exactly small, by a good 178 meters. The “rival” goes by the name of “Omniturm,” was designed by Bjarke Ingels and his firm of architects BIG, and is the latest edition to the Frankfurt skyline. What is special about the high-rise is that it not only has offices, but also almost 180 apartments. And that is where Laufen comes into play. The Swiss company delivered the ceramics for the sanitary fittings in the exclusive apartments. The washbasins in the “Val” series, for example, are the work of Konstantin Grcic.
It goes without saying that the numerous invited architects, interior designers, journalists, and designers were extremely curious to take a look inside the tower, where the interior fittings have just been completed. And as such there was huge demand for the tours of the high-rise and the show apartment that Laufen and the real-estate developer Tishman Speyer were offering, until late in the evening. At another Tishman Speyer project, the neighboring Taunusturm, there was champagne, truffle pasta, exquisite fish, not to mention another famous party guest behind the turntables, waiting for the guests: the dazzling New York designer Karim Rashid. Clad in bright yellow and pink, he said in his short welcome address that he has been a DJ far longer than a designer, and then proceeded to lay down some beats for the evening.
Rashid has not yet worked for Laufen, unlike his colleague Marcel Wanders, whose collection “The New Classic” officially premiered at the ISH. He was in a correspondingly relaxed mood, as was his Creative Director Gabriele Chiave, who was responsible for overseeing the new collection. And they were not the only ones. Among others e15 founder Philipp Mainzer, the Zurich architects Andreas Fuhrimann and Gabrielle Hächler, who designed the magnificent Laufen stand, Claudia Meixner (Meixner Schlüter Wendt), the architect behind the new Henninger Tower, and the designer and interior designer Tilla Goldberg (Ippolito Fleitz Group) had all accepted the invitation. They were welcomed by Laufen’s Senior Managing Director Alberto Magrans, Marc Viardot (Director Marketing & Products Laufen), Roger Furrer (Head of Communications Laufen), Béatrice Rüeger (Corporate Communications Manager Laufen), Bodo Jüngling (Senior Director / Head of Design & Construction Germany Tishman Speyer),and the two members of the management board of Stylepark Franziska Michaelis and Robert Volhard.
