Philippe Starck
| Philippe Starck | |
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Philippe Starck, 2006
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| Born |
January 18, 1949 Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Website | Starck.com |
Philippe Starck (born 1949) is a French designer known since the start of his career in the 1980s for his interior, product, industrial and architectural design including furniture and objects that have simple but inventive structures.
The son of an aeronautical engineer, Starck studied at the École Camondo in Paris. An inflatable structure he imagined in 1969 was a first incursion into questions of materiality, and an early indicator of Starck's interest in where and how people live. Starck's designs brought him to the attention of Pierre Cardin who offered him a job as artistic director of his publishing house.
While working for Cardin, Starck set up his first industrial design company, Starck Product – which he later renamed Ubik after Philip K. Dick's novel – and began working with manufacturers in Italy – Driade, Alessi, Kartell – and internationally, including Austria's Drimmer, Vitra in Switzerland and Spain's Disform. His concept of democratic design led him to focus on mass-produced consumer goods rather than one-off pieces, seeking ways to reduce cost and improve quality in mass-market goods.
In 1983, the French President François Mitterrand, on the recommendation of his Minister of Culture Jack Lang, chose Starck to refurbish the president's private apartments at the Élysée. The following year he designed the Café Costes.
Starck's output expanded to include furniture, decoration, architecture, street furniture, industry (wind turbines, photo booths), bathroom fittings, kitchens, floor and wall coverings, lighting, domestic appliances, office equipment such as staplers, utensils (including a juice squeezer and a toothbrush), tableware, clothing, accessories (shoes, eyewear, luggage, watches) toys, glassware (perfume bottles, mirrors), graphic design and publishing, even food (Panzani pasta, Lenôtre Yule log), and vehicles for land, sea, air and space (bikes, motorbikes, yachts, planes). The buildings he designed in Japan, starting in 1989, went against the grain of traditional forms. The first, Nani Nani, in Tokyo, is an anthropomorphic structure, clad in a living material that evolves over time. The thesis being: design should take its place within the environment but without impinging on it; an object must serve its context and become part of it.
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