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Starck Philippe
School dropout Philippe Starck jump-started his career by designing two nightclub interiors in Paris in the 1970s. The success of the clubs won the attention of then-President Fran莽ois Mitterrand, who asked Starck to refurbish one of the private apartments in the 脡lys茅e Palace.
Two years later, Starck designed the interior of the Caf茅 Costes in Paris and was on his way to becoming a design celebrity. In quick succession, he created elegant interiors for the Royalton and Paramount hotels in New York, the Delano in Miami and the Mondrian in Los Angeles. He also began to produce chairs, lamps, motorbikes, boats and a line of housewares and kitchen utensils, like his Juicy Salif for Alessi.
During the 1980s and 鈥90s Starck continued his prolific creativity. His products have sensual, appealing forms suggestive of character or personal identity, and Starck often conferred upon them clever, poetic or whimsical names (for example, his Rosy Angelis Lamp, the La Marie Chair and playful Prince Aha Stool). Starck鈥檚 furniture also often reworks earlier decorative styles. For example, the elegant Dr. No Chair is a traditional club chair made unexpectedly of injection-molded plastic. While the material and form would seem to be contradictions, it is just such paradoxes that make Starck鈥檚 work so compelling.
Starck鈥檚 approach to design is subversive, intelligent and always interesting. His objects surprise and delight even as they transgress boundaries and subvert expectations. During the 鈥90s Starck also began to promote product longevity and stipulate that morality, honesty and objectivity become part of the design process. He has said that the designer鈥檚 role is to create more 鈥渉appiness鈥 with less. One can almost hear echoes of Charles and Ray Eames, who 鈥渨anted to make the world a better place.鈥
For all his fame and fashionableness, Starck鈥檚 work remains a serious and important expression of 20th-century creativity.
