Philippe Starck

Designer and architect

Date of birth: January 18, 1949

Place of birth: Paris, France

Education: École Nissim de Camondo

Significance: Philippe Starck moved from designing inflatable objects to designing a wide range of items. He has designed interiors, boats, furniture, industrial designs, and many other items. He is widely known as an architect.

Background

Philippe Starck was born in Paris, France, in 1949. His father was an aircraft engineer who designed planes. Starck studied at the École Nissim de Camondo, where he had an idea and designed an inflatable structure. He launched his entrepreneurial career in 1968, when he created a business that manufactured inflatable items. Several years later, he drew attention in France for his work on the interiors of two nightclubs in Paris: the La Main Bleue in 1976 and the Les Bains-Douches in 1978. He formed Starck Product, an industrial design company, and later renamed it Ubik.

Starck's nightclub designs led to international attention when President François Mitterrand (1916 – 1996) took notice. He was impressed enough to suggest that Starck redesign some private apartments at the Élysée Palace in 1983. Starck's success further boosted his profile, and he designed the interiors of restaurants in Paris, Tokyo, Mexico City, Madrid, and other cities.

The designer branched out into architecture. He designed several buildings in Japan, beginning with a 1989 project in Tokyo, Nani Nani. Starck designed the office building to be covered with living matter. He followed this a year later with the Asahi Beer Hall, and in 1992 designed the Baron Vert offices in Osaka.

With several buildings to his credit, Starck gained a commission in France for the Bordeaux Airport control tower in 1997. He also redesigned boutiques in London, New York, and Paris for Jean Paul Gaultier.

Life's Work

Starck designed a number of hotels around the world, beginning with the Royalton in New York and expanding to a number of other American cities, as well as the Saint Martin's Lane (1999) and Sanderson (2000) in London.

He designed the SLS Beverly Hills hotel resort in 2007 and worked with Sam Nazarian, the owner of the SLS chain, to open other SLS hotels around the United States. He established a series of boutique hotels called the Mama Shelters in Paris, Marseille, and other cities. He simultaneously redesigned luxury hotels, including the Le Meurice in Paris.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, Starck began working with John Hitchcox, with whom he founded YOO. The hotel and residential design company has designed buildings and spaces in more than two dozen countries around the world.

The avowed boating fan also revealed a design for Port Adriano in Majorca, Spain. This project also included a close adherence to environmental standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, as Starck announced his determination to promote and create sustainable designs.

In 2012 Starck completed Alhondiga in Bilbao, Spain. The cultural center contains a wide variety of venues, including a cinema, a library, a restaurant, and shops. The center, a former wine warehouse, was renamed the Azkuna Zentroa in 2015.

In 2014 he designed the first inflatable private building in Europe. Le Nuage, which is covered in a polymer called ETFE, was built in Montpellier, France. In October of that year, he launched the Prefabricated Accessible Technological Homes (PATH) project. His vision was to design prefabricated houses for the masses, beginning with two designs and optional additional modules amounting to thirty-four floor plans ranging from one to eight rooms. The houses could be in place six months after the homeowner placed an order.

One of his many lamp designs, Gun (2005), is a political statement about death. Some of the profit from the sale of this design goes to the Freres des Hommes charity. In his designs of objects—including tables, chairs, tableware, and lemon squeezers—Starck has said that his primary goal is to design items to be useful. He tries to use minimal material to create maximum benefit. In 2002 his line of baby-care items, including bottles and cups, debuted in Target stores in the United States. In addition to housewares and personal-care items such as toothbrushes, Starck has designed electric automobiles, high-tech eyeglasses, Puma intelligent shoes, electric bicycles and biking equipment, underwear and outerwear, luggage, sandals, and perfumes. He also designed a line of kitchen appliances ranging from hot plates to refrigerators. In 2019, he worked with combined forces with artificial intelligence to create what was dubbed the AI Chair. Then, in 2022, he was invited to reimagine the classic Miss Dior or Medallion chair for Dior Maison's Salone del Mobile 2022.

Starck's pursuit of practicality and technological superiority and his interest in sustainability led him to develop a home heating unit. In 2015 he introduced the Speetbox, an airtight wood-burning unit. The modular construction includes storage boxes to hold wood, as well as diffusion boxes that trap heat and slowly release it over a twenty-four-hour period for complete customization.

Starck also entered the arena of aerosol food. He worked with David Edwards to create a micro-particle spray device. The WAHH Quantum Sensations delivers a small measure of alcohol liquid to the user, allowing the individual to experience the sensations of drinking without getting intoxicated. His other ventures in the food and drink industry include organic foods and organic olive oils, as well as champagne and wine.

In 2023, the Mortlach whiskey company announced that Starck would become its first creative director in the two centuries of its existence.

Impact

Starck has championed the development of useful design, focusing on both practical function and economy of materials. He has also strongly supported sustainability and technology in his designs and products. The designer has expanded his ideas to include a wide range of items that greatly expanded his brand as well.

Personal Life

Starck has been married four times. He has a daughter, Ara, with his first wife, Brigitte, who died of breast cancer in 1992. He has a son, Oa, with his second wife, Patricia, and a son, Lago, and daughter, K, with his third wife, Nori. He married Jasmine Abdellatif Starck in 2007.

Bibliography

"The A.I. Chair." Gessato, 17 Apr. 2019, www.gessato.com/artificial-intelligence-chair/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

Carmel-Arthur, Judith. Philippe Starck. London: Carlton Publishing Group, 1999. Print.

"A Day with Philippe Starck During Milan Design Week 2024." Designboom, 14 May 2024, www.designboom.com/design/dream-today-peace-interview-philippe-starck-milan-design-week-05-14-2024/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"Dior Maison Employs Philippe Starck for Reimagined Miss Dior Chair." Hypebeast, 17 June 2022, hypebeast.com/2022/6/miss-dior-chair-philippe-starck. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

Gazsi, Mélina. "Philippe Starck: 'I Couldn't Care Less About My Life.'" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 12 March 2013. Web. 7 June 2016.

Madlener, Adrian. "Philippe Starck Announced as Mortlach Whisky’s First Creative Director." Wallpaper, 12 Dec. 2023, www.wallpaper.com/design-interiors/philippe-starck-mortlach-creative-director-announcement. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"P.A.T.H. Houses/Philippe Starck+Riko." Arch Daily. Arch Daily. 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 7 June 2016.

"Philippe Starck, Designer." TED. TED Conferences, LLC. Dec. 2007. Web. 7 June 2016.

Sisson, Patrick. "10 Iconic Philippe Starck Designs." Dwell. Dwell Media LLC. 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 June 2016.

Wingfield, Jonathan. "About." Starck. Philippe Starck Official Website. Web. 7 June 2016.