Krista’s Team Visits the Kohler Factory
Krista’s team recently visited the Kohler factory in Kohler, WI courtesy of Wool Plumbing Supply. What an experience!
First things first: Kohler is a diverse company, making products ranging from plumbing hardware to generators to… chocolate! Not kidding. Hold the presses! Kohler makes their own chocolate, and it’s amazing. One of our first stops in Kohler was the chocolate factory.
What, you ask, does chocolate have to do with interior design? Absolutely nothing. But it does deserve special attention. Just look at those scrumptious truffles!
Okay, okay… moving on…
We stayed at the American Club, a 5 star resort hotel and spa.
And the piece de resistance! This bed… tucked away inside a cozy dormer-style nook. Simply adorable!
We took a tour of the Kohler factory where all of the magic and production takes place. We saw large kilns heating hundreds of ceramic toilets, sinks, etc. at one time. We saw the glassblowing factory where talented artisans literally poured heated glass into molds and created the most beautiful of sinks. We saw custom appliques used to decorate the interiors of sinks, bathtubs, and toilet tanks. It was a truly remarkable experience. The only downside: NO PHOTOS ALLOWED!
The entire town of Kohler was beautifully manicured and designed to attract skilled manufacturers to come and work for the factory and to raise a family in a safe, comfortable environment.
Artistic sculptures from Kohler’s many talented designers line the streets.
The Kohler Design Center houses an interactive museum exhibit and displays of hundreds of types of Kohler products. They also have 25 or so small bathrooms that were designed by nationally-recognized designers, such as Bunny Williams and Jonathan Adler.
The museum divided Kohler’s designs by decades. The bathroom fixtures in the 60s and 70s were far out, man! Avocado green, canary yellow!
Jonathan Adler’s bathroom design! Love him! We imagine he was inspired by A Clockwork Orange!
The back-lit oasis was designed by Nikki Blustin. Soothing and over-the-top all at the same time!
A stark contrast to the dutch colonial vibe of much of Kohler’s buildings and houses was their communications building, a modern monolith that housed even more modern approaches to communications, product development, and advertising. We weren’t able to photograph many places inside this building, but Kohler’s marketing team is top-notch! They had one room dedicated to trending social media with several televisions flashing any and all mentions of Kohler (or their competitors) across the screen in real time!
An interior shot of the communications building lobby:
Large bookcases ran endlessly down interiors, filled with magazines from all over the world to help the marketing team identify trends in each of their international markets! So cool and so overwhelming to think about!
We had a blast! Thanks so much to Wool Plumbing Supply for financing the trip. Such an amazing experience. We did finish our chocolate, unfortunately. So happy they accept online orders!
