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Ladies First

Cecilia Fabiani -- Interior Design, 7/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Right off the majestic main courtyard of the Palazzo Durini, a 1648 monument to the wealth of Milan's mercantile class, Agape invited five designers to explore diverse bath-related situations during the run of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Using products manufactured by the Italian company, Camilla Benedini did a child-size kindergarten bathroom, Marco Ferreri a conceptually humorous "tree," Claudio La Viola an intimate space intended for a couple, and Patricia Urquiola a "garden" with acetate "mosquito netting."

Konstantin Grcic, principal of Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design, opted for the idea of public rest rooms. His double-sided project dealt with nightclub facilities—particularly their "repetition and multiplication," he says. For the ladies' side, he mixed his own Jet mirrored vanities with Benedini Associati's ceramic Cheese washbasins and Giampaolo Benedini's Ritz soap dispensers, setting everything against a jazzed-up background of colored paper circles. He went the opposite direction for the men's room: black-and-white stripes.

During the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, Konstantin Grcic installed a rest-room vignette in a 1648 palazzo. This is the ladies' room, which backed up to the men's room.