As part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, CP Hart unveiled The Wanders Collection from Bisazza Bagno

CP Hart’s flagship showroom in London’s Waterloo recently unveiled The Wanders Collection, from Bisazza Bagno and created by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders. His first bathroom collection includes two ranges; the Baroque-inspired Antiques Series and the contemporary Architectural series. Marketing director of CP Hart, Nigel Palmer quizzed  designer Marcel Wanders at the launch about the inspiration behind the collection.

Nigel Palmer (NP): It seems to me, Marcel, you get inspiration from the most diverse, unusual and sometimes bizarre places. So, I wondered where the inspiration came from for your bathroom collection?

Marcel Wanders (MW): You couldn’t be more right. My inspiration comes from the most bizarre places, which is from inside. I think a lot of people believe inspiration comes from outside, they go to the library and read some books and they are inspired. I think inspiration is a divine fire, which burns inside of you. It gives you a reason to live. It gives you a reason to wake up every morning and work hard every day and find all these new ideas.

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NP: And so, the bath – the extraordinary bath – which is the centrepiece, tell us the story behind that.

MW: I had this dream that there was this super big giant who is walking in a forest and finds the most beautiful girl. He scrapes out his soap to make a bath for her. It was such a beautiful, wonderful idea, I made a drawing of it. And when I had the drawing, I decided to make it. For a project, I made a one-off and that was so cool and super-big, I had to make [its] babies. I had to grow the family of soap baths.

NP: Did no-one say to you, when you came up with the idea for a chandelier shower, that you are crazy and that is an incredible idea?

MW: About 10 years ago, the bathroom became a space of our house, instead of being a place behind a door. It became something more, which we call our interior, and was something we would open to our experience and to our emotions. And so, doing this, I think for me it was very logical to to find ways to put the architypes of interior inside this environment. Obviously, to have a fantastic centrepiece in a super-tiny environment, always works. It’s not just looking at the functional issues, of getting people wet. But, in effect, it’s very logical, if you look at the drawings of architects, you always see there are light features in the wrong place.

NP: Your attention to detail, Marcel, is incredible. The taps, the blood red taps, does that hint at a darker side of your vision?

MW: No. It’s a sweet side. You make a fantastic space and everything is controlled and everything is perfect, then you might want to take a photograph. Suddenly there’s [makes a buzzing noise], and a bumblebee sitting at the centre of the image. It’s the thing which doesn’t fit. I love the thing which doesn’t fit. A good space needs an irritation and fun of the irrational. I think the colours red and blue always has a meaning connected to water. It’s nice to disturb that with a faucet which opens and closes warm and cold water. I think as designers we have to make things which reinforce culture and disrupt culture. So, to use red, in such a place for such a different reason disrupts culture and is fun.

NP: You’re Dutch. You’re open-minded and the British are conservative, cautious, especially in bathroom design. Do you think this is about shaking it up?

MW: I don’t believe that the British are so conservative. We are sons and daughters of our fathers and mothers but we want to go forward and are excited about tomorrow. Yes, we need a connection to our past but we all have a need to go forward. I think people want to make a contribution.

Audience: In your opinion of design, what is more important form or function?

MW: The two most overvalued things in design are form and function. We have been talking way too long about these. Other great wise men have spoken about form and all of them have really interesting sayings like ‘form follows function’, ‘form follows entity’ and ‘form follows emotion’ and ‘form follows whatever’. If you put them all together, all they are saying is form always only follows. If it only follows other things, you don’t want to pay too much attention to it.

Audience: We never used to see architects or designers involved in product design. Yet more recently, over the past few years, we have seen increasingly from designers such as yourself and architects involved in product design. What is the attraction, do you think, in the architect and design circles, being involved in bathroom product design?

MW: I’m curious who was designing bathrooms before ten years ago? Maybe these were people who did the design but we didn’t call designers? Over the last few years, we have decided that the bathroom is an area of our interior which we care about more. It is something we share with the people we love. My interest in bathrooms came only when I started to do hotels and was the first time I looked at ceramic. A lot of hotels became spa hotels, so the bathroom was not just a necessity but luxury. I think that movement has changed the logic of how we care about bathrooms.