That’s the question we found ourselves asking this week as we checked out Cesana, the Italian manufacturer of luxury shower enclosures. Calling Cesana’s products “shower doors” is something of a misnomer: the 40-year-old company’s products are architecture and hardware at the same time, offering a remarkable alternative to a part of your bathroom you’ve probably never even though about before.

As New Yorkers, we’re used to a shower experience that qualifies as “luxurious” if it includes a shower curtain, water pressure higher than an old garden hose, and a brief respite from the noisy neighbors. But as Cesana’s catalog attests, bathing should be a spatially remarkable experience, one that activates the space in which it takes place. Let’s take a look at a few of the coolest, shall we?

Eclisse looks like it was designed by SANAA’s Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum (in fact, it was Piet Billekens, who designs for Cesana). A semi-circular wooden platform – a dry “cabin” of sorts — hugs the edge of the shower itself. This way, the awkward in-between phase of waiting for the shower to heat up or drying off, takes place within a protected space. It’s an incredibly simple innovation, one of those “why isn’t every shower like this?” kind of moments.

Meanwhile, Plano is the most strikingly architectural piece in the collection. It’s a single pane of clear glass, suspended from cantilevered steel beams that attach to the wall, leaving the bather open to the room on two sides. An inlaid platform of wooden slats catch water spray – the effectiveness of which is tested by leaving a Barcelona chair within a few feet of the open shower:

Logic Horizon offers yet another mind-bogglingly simple innovation: heat controls that can be accessed from inside the shower or outside of it, before you get in. Its glassy walls can be installed within the home, or can actually be integrated into the building envelope, as you’ll see below.

You can head over to Cesana’s brand page to check out all of their products, but here are some of our favorite shots. Stay clean out there!

by Architizer Editors

posted in Product

tagged cesana, product, products, shower door, sponsored

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