French designer Philippe Starck has picked up some of the English potty humour since moving to the UK last year.

His new building, in the heart of Germany’s Black Forest for bathroom manufacturer Duravit, features a 12m-high, 11-tonne toilet that also serves as a viewing platform. “It’s just my little joke,” Starck told BD, adding that it took him a record-breaking half an hour to design the building before handing it over to a local firm to complete.

But when he turned up for the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, attended by press from across the globe, he must have felt a bit let down. The offices housed inside the shell of Starck’s building failed to meet his taste.

“It’s very embarrassing,” said Starck, who also designs fittings for the bathroom giant. “When I saw it inside, I thought ‘I hope no one thinks we did that’.”