Every object or space that bears the signature of Philippe Starck is part of the “wonderful world” that this unconventional creator, designer and architect has been building for the past three decades to “beautify” our everyday lives.
Philippe Starck was born in Paris in 1949 and was “captivated” by design from an early age. The desire to create and the ability to dream were two “qualities” that his father managed to pass on to him, and they had a significant influence on his development.
He studied industrial design and interior architecture at the École Camondo, a private five-year college in Paris.
He founded his first company, which produced inflatable objects, in 1968 at the age of just 19, and the first space he designed was the club La main bleue in Paris in 1976.
The event that launched his career came in 1982, when the then French president, François Mitterrand, invited him to decorate the Élysée Palace, the official presidential residence and office where cabinet meetings are held.
This commission brought him international fame, and his works began to appear one after another in cities around the world.
Philippe Starck’s approach to design follows the philosophy of a film director, who creates scenarios intended to lift people out of their prosaic everyday lives and carry them off into a “world of the mind”.
The spaces he has designed are “timeless images” of another dimension for the contemporary urban scene.
In an interview he gave to designboom.com in 2005, he stated that what characterizes his work is freedom in design and the honesty that is reflected in the result as the years go by and as he evolves.
One of the greatest living designers, Philippe Starck says he designs for the masses, believing that design should be enjoyed by everyone and not exclusively by the financial elite.
Besides architectural design, his work includes furniture, lighting, clothing, luggage, hi-tech devices, vehicles and various other objects.
