Philippe Starck French, b. 1949

With more than 10,000 creations to date, his global reputation and his tireless protean inventiveness should not make us forget the essential. Philippe Starck has a mission, a vision: that creation, whatever form it takes, should make life better for the greatest number. This eminently poetic and political, rebellious and benevolent, pragmatic and subversive duty, Starck believes it should be shared by all and sums it up with the humor that has accompanied his approach since the beginning: "No one is obliged to be a genius, but everyone is obliged to participate."

 

This global citizen considers it a duty to share his ethical and subversive vision of a fairer planet, and creates unconventional places and objects whose goal is to be "good" before they are beautiful.

 

His deep understanding of contemporary mutations, his enthusiasm to imagine new ways of living, his determination to change the world, his commitment to positive degrowth, his love of ideas, his concern to defend the intelligence of the useful - and the usefulness of intelligence - have carried him from iconic creation to iconic creation... From everyday products such as furniture or a juicer to revolutionary mega-yachts, hotels and restaurants aspiring to be stimulating, phantasmagorical and intensely alive places, he has constantly pushed the boundaries and criteria of contemporary creation.

 

An individual wind turbine, a smart thermostat, electrically assisted bicycles, or an innovative and ecological prefabricated wooden house - soon to be followed by solar boats and space station housing modules, his technological miracles thus become the vectors of a democratic ecology, turned towards action and respectful of the double human and natural heritage.

 

Prefiguring the phenomena of convergence and dematerialization, Philippe Starck has always elaborated objects that never cease to seek the more in the less. His dreams are so vital, so essential, that Starck was the first Frenchman invited to participate in the famous TED conferences.

 

Inventor, creator, architect, designer, artistic director, Philippe Starck is all of these things, but above all he is an honest man in the pure tradition of the artists of the Renaissance.

 

 

Translated from French from the biography written by Jonathan Wingfield in December 2018.