Philippe Starck

Parisian Philippe Starck is one of the most recognized names in modern product design. After attending the Ecole Nissim de Camondo he set up his first company in 1968 to produce inflatable objects. Starck gained recognition with his design for the Café Costes and several Paris night clubs in the seventies, but the most distinguished architectural design of his early career was the design for the French presidential Elysées Palace. He is responsible for the design of numerous quirky, yet ingenious architectural projects such as the Royalton and Paramount hotels in New York, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, the Peninsula Hotel restaurant in Hong Kong, and the Asahi building with its gold flame stretching into the skies of Tokyo.
Similarly to his architecture, Starck treats each of his product designs as an opportunity to stimulate our daily life; making all the things around us notable. Starck has been commissioned by many successful manufacturers to design our telephones, baby bottles, ash-trays, toothbrushes, door handles, cutlery, water bottles, kettles, radios, time pieces, clothes, currency, motorcycles, toilets, sporting equipment, and many other products that are used in daily life.
Museums in Paris, New York, Munich, London, Chicago, Kyoto, and Barcelona have recognized Starck’s ability to infuse spirited sensibility in the design of his products. He has received countless prizes and awards, such as the designer of the year, Grand Prix for Industrial Design, the Oscar for Design, and the Officier des Arts et des Lettres. Many monograms and other reverential books are available, many which include seemingly humble photos where Starck is posed comically with his products, or his friends. In essence, Starck is “an honest, enthusiastic citizen of today’s world, (who) 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.”