Axor meets Hilton

The five-star hotel is located in the lower 23 floors of the Beetham Tower, consisting of a total of 48 storey, the new landmark of this city. The imposing architecture and design-oriented ambience create a luxurious space for a stay of absolute tranquility and wellbeing.

Standing 169 meters tall, the Tower is the highest building in Manchester. Thanks to its exceptional proportions, with the ratio of its width to its height amounting to one to ten, the Tower is one of the narrowest high-rises in the world. The Tower – named after its property developer and operator, the Beetham Organisation, a large construction and investment company headquartered in Liverpool – has exclusive apartments in addition to the Hilton Hotel, from the 24th to the 48th floor.

Retreat oasis
The design highlights of the rooms are, however, the bathrooms. Here, guests will find exactly what they have dreamt of in terms of a five-star stay: timeless vividness and a high degree of fixture comfort mould the image and impart to the guests a feeling of luxury without ostentation. Backlit glass surfaces lend the room a pleasantly white glow that serves to caress the elegant materials and forms and creates a harmony of colours, surfaces and room proportions. The walls and the floor are clad in black or alternatively white marble. The oval bath tub, like an organic sculpture, as its central element, is a stand-alone structure within the room. The shower, which is level with the floor, is generous in its design and is freely accessible through the absence of trip hazards.

High-quality details and extras, like fittings from the Axor Starck collection from the house of Hansgrohe, fulfill the demand for wellness combined with sophistication. The slim washstand fittings are illustrious, positioned next to the organically formed washbasins. The rendered down, elegant design, for which the prominent French designer Philippe Starck is responsible, is the characteristic feature of the bathroom fixtures. By now a classic for quite some time, the perfect minimalism of Axor Starck enjoys great popularity amongst both design oriented builders, as well as architects and interior designers like Jestico + Whiles. Philippe Starck then indeed also tempts guests into a world in which the superfluous really is superfluous in the bathrooms of the Hilton Deansgate Manchester. In this way, water – which represents a central element for regeneration – is allowed to take centre stage. This relationship between people and the product, but to an even greater extent between people and water, was very important to Starck during the design of his collection of bathroom fixtures, because he is not only concerned about personal hygiene but also about forms of spiritual rejuvenation and – if you like – of mental cleansing. The fact that Axor Starck's giving of form gets by with using just basic elements of design, like the circle and straight line, actually also enhances the technical perfection of the fittings with a well-nigh spiritual quality.

The vertical marble column next to the bathtub provides an archaic look and feel: the bathtub spout, which reminds one of a gargoyle-style waterspout, the simple built-in wall fittings and the bar-type hand shower repeat the puristic form vocabulary and quality demands right into the details. The shower takes into account the physical and spiritual requirements of the guest. Here the designers quite consciously selected the large, extra-flat plate overhead shower from the Axor Starck collection with AirPower technology. That is because it ensures a pleasantly soft shower rain by enriching the shower jet with air. The accompanying built-in shower thermostat with its round rosette persuades through its aesthetics to the same extent as its high functionality: its integrated hot water safety device and hi-tech thermal element guarantee a constant water temperature while taking a shower, so that the guest is protected against undesirable alternation between hot and cold. The high responsiveness of the thermostat in addition reduces the need for manual adjustments and thus also energy and water consumption.

Guests can find peace in the bathrooms of the new Hilton hotel and leave the daily grind behind. The bathroom here is a place to pause and for regeneration, a beneficial retreat oasis in what is today – especially in a metropolis like Manchester – increasingly a world characterized by a hectic pace, stress and stimulus satiation. The vivid and rendered down form vocabulary of the room design virtually inspires one to change one’s perspective, to concentrate entirely on one’s own well-being. In the process, the bathroom becomes a place to rediscover body, spirit and soul, a place to inspire fresh thoughts and new feelings.

Axor the designer brand of Hansgrohe AG is regarded as the epitome of supreme quality and perfect, innovative design in the exclusive bathroom. With a vast number of independent, comprehensive collections, which Axor develops in cooperation with internationally renowned architects and designers such as Philippe Starck, Antonio Citterio, Jean-Marie Massaud, Patricia Urquiola or Phoenix Design, the designer brand provides unlimited freedom and so allows the creation of highly individual bathroom solutions and personalized interior designs. Axor collections can be found in the Burj Dubai as well as in the Yoo Apartments in Manhattan, in the Bulgari Hotels of Milan and Bali as well as on the Queen Mary II, in the Lufthansa First Class Lounge in Frankfurt and also in the Else Club in Moscow. The Axor brand manager is Philippe Grohe (42), grandson of the company’s founder Hans Grohe.