Matteo Thun dismisses luxury bathroom “fallacy”

The idea of hotels offering large, luxury bathrooms that offer more than just bathing is a fallacy, according to designer and architect Matteo Thun.

“In hotels, the talk is always of living bathrooms or of luxury bathrooms offering more than just bathing. However, this take on luxury bathrooms is a fallacy,” said Thun, who has recently designed the new Onto bathroom series for Duravit.

“Bathrooms in hotels are not getting bigger, they remain small spaces. If you want to integrate them into the living or sleeping area, you simply have to take down the walls. With the exception of the toilet that, for reasons of hygiene, should remain a self-contained room,” said Thun.

He added that keeping bathrooms small does not impact negatively on the guest experience.

“The guest’s main concern is a great shower – and the concept I’ve just talked about offers more than enough space for that!” said Thun.

He explained that the most important consideration for hotel bathroom design was “water and the pleasure that can be had from it”.

“This doesn’t actually mean using more water, but incorporating the fascination of a dynamic element. For this reason, we avoid sharp corners and edges so that the individual can move around freely and instinctively wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

“Hygiene and cleanliness are of fundamental importance – which is why we stopped working with tiles more than 25 years ago,” said Thun.

“Another very important element is light — every bathroom should have natural light — and nothing but indirect light sources,” he asserted.

In terms of trends for design in the future, Thus predicted that the high-tech trend will take a back seat in the coming years.

“Low-tech and individuality will be the order of the day,” Thun said.