Philippe Starck

7 juni 2003 - 7 september 2003

The presentation of 20 years work by Philippe Starcks was done by himself. In several films he talked about the developement of his designs, his feelings designing them and about the place he thinks they have in human society.

Philippe Starck is one of the most renowned modern designers in the world. He was born in Paris on 18 January 1949 as the son of an aircraft designer. Starck regularly recounts how he spent his young years under his father’s drawing tables, how he was incessantly engaged in cutting, pasting and sand-papering, how he dismantled bicycles, motorcycles and other objects and put them together again.

In the mid-sixties, Starck attended the Ecole Nissim de Camondo in Paris. In 1968, he started up his first company, and was soon hired to lay out various nightclubs. Large assignments for interior design came in the 1980s: Café Costes in Paris (1984), Manin in Tokyo (1985), and Teatriz in Madrid (1990). A few years later, he formulated a design for the Groninger Museum – the pavilion for ceramic work from the Far East. In addition to the Groninger Museum, other examples of his architectural designs include public buildings such as La Flamme for the Japanese Asahi brewery, the Nani Nani office block in Tokyo, the Green Baron, an office complex in Osaka, and a shop for the French company Laguiole, which produces cutlery. He has also created countless drawings for furniture collections and user items.

With the design of clothes, shoes, user articles and furniture, Starck attempts to position life itself closer to the human body, without losing respect for nature and without disregarding the future of humankind in the process.