Linda C. Lentz

A Ciottolo ceramic basin can elevate hand washing from mundane to sensual, although its design is based on earthly items. The line, which Sieger Design’s Michael Sieger created for Duravit, takes its name from the Italian word for “pebble.” It includes three different basin shapes—circular, oval, and teardrop—that are meant to evoke the outlines of […]

Poggenpohl, a Herford, Germany, company that has been designing avant-garde kitchens for more than 100 years, does not cross the line with its latest innovation; it erases it. The +Integration (pronounced plus Integration) kitchen design, which debuted in the United States in May 2005, is ideal for people whose lives do not fit into tidy […]

French designer Philippe Starck describes his designs as an attempt to bring poetry and surprise to the otherwise mundane. If not poetic, his design of Duravit’s new headquarters and design center in the Black Forest town of Hornberg, Germany, is certainly surprising. The building’s facade, a mixture of glass and stainless steel panels, serves as […]

Amid a sea of minimalist, albeit stunning, European kitchens, Italian manufacturer Snaidero dares to be different. Almost a half-century of collaborations with architecture and design luminaries—including Gae Aulenti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Paolo Pininfarina, Massimo Iosa Ghini, and Roberto Lucci and Paolo Orlandini—has given the company a creative edge and produced a distinctive range of highly functional […]

When Ann Sacks founded her company in 1980, she was intent on displaying her tile in a manner that would stir the emotions of designers and their clients and compel them to have it installed in their homes. Sacks initiated this marketing plan in her own Portland, Ore., home, where she covered the walls, floors, […]

While omnipresent in homes throughout Europe, Electrolux, the Swedish brand responsible for the tank vacuum that was sold door-to-door to millions of American households following its introduction in 1924, has maintained a low profile on this side of the Atlantic in recent decades. However, AB Electrolux—now an appliance conglomerate that includes AEG in Germany, Frigidaire […]

When Michael Sieger took the creative helm of Sieger Design in 2003, he inherited a business that his father, Dieter, had nurtured for nearly 40 years. The elder Sieger—recently retired and now involved in other artistic pursuits—began his career in the mid-1960s as an architect and designer of luxury yacht interiors. He shifted to industrial […]

A jolt of caffeine has been the genesis of many a brainchild. The cappuccino Juergen Pluess was sipping late one night in Barcelona’s fashionable Marina section is a case in point. As he mused over his frothy brew, Pluess, international marketing manager for Miele kitchen products, came up with the idea of a machine for the […]

Not long ago, the only way to gain entrée into the rarefied world of custom kitchen or bath design was to visit a showroom accompanied by your designer or architect. Fortunately, for those of us with strong opinions about what goes into our homes, showroom doors formerly marked To the Trade Only are opening to […]

Vitraform Coppa Pedestal A revolution in glass.   In the late 1980s, Jerry and Sheila Fein’s OEM glass business faced stiff competition from Asia, so the couple decided to combine their talents (he is an artist and industrial designer; she an interior designer) to create a brand-new product. The glass basin they fashioned for the […]