Philippe Starck
PHILIPPE STARCK was born in Born in Paris in 1949 and recalls spending his childhood underneath his father's drawing boards for hours, which were spent sawing, cutting, gluing, sanding, dismantling bikes, motor cycles and other objects. All this taking apart the world and rebuilding it with whatever came to hand has helped create one of the most original designers of our time. Several years and several prototypes later, the Italians have made him responsible for furniture, President Mitterand asked him to change life at the Elysées Palace, the Café Costes has become Le Café, he has turned the Royalton and Paramount in New York into the new classics of the hotel world and scattered Japan with architectural tours de force that have made him the leading exponent of expressionist architecture. He has obtained many important acknowledgements such as the Grand Prix National de la Création industrielle and the Honor Award of the American Institute of Architects. He considers himself as "a Japanese architect, an American art director, a German industrial designer, a French artistic director, an Italian furniture designer".
His respect for the environment and for humankind has also been recognized in France, where he was commissioned to design the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the control tower at Bordeaux airport, and a waste recycling plant in Paris metropolitan area.Abroad, he continues to shake up the traditions and culture of major cities around the world, with the decoration of the Peninsula Hotel restaurant in Hong Kong, the Teatron in Mexico, the Hotel Delano in Miami, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, the Asia de Cuba restaurant in New York, the St Martin’s Lane in London and a whole clutch of projects under way elsewhere.
STARCK's gift is to turn the object of his commission instantly into a place of charm, pleasure and encounters. An honest, enthusiastic citizen of today's world, he considers it his duty to share with us his subversive vision of a better world which is his alone and yet which fits up like a glove. He is tireless in changing the realities of our daily life, sublimating our roots and the deepest wellsprings of our being into his changes. He captures the essential spirit of the sea for Béneteau, turns the toothbrush into a noble object, squeezes lemons but the "wrong" way, and even makes our TV sets more fun to be with when he brings his "emotional style" into Thomson's electronic world. He also takes time out to change our pasta, our ash-trays, lamps, toothbrushes, door handles, cutlery, candlesticks, kettles, knives, vases, clocks, scooters, motorcycles, desks, beds, taps, baths, toilets in short, our whole life. A life that he finds increasingly fascinating, which has brought him now closer to the human body with clothes, underwear, shoes, glasses, watches, food, toiletries et al., still determined that his designs shall, as ever, respect the nature and the future of mankind.
