Interview
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Words Alexandra Onderwater
Portrait Malou van Breevoort
Interview
French star designer
Philippe Starck talks
about why he feels
more like a movie
director than an
interior designer,
why he’s walking
away from interiors,
and how his thinktank could fine-tune
the future.
Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck
‘I Hate Uselessness’
The power of the experience over the power
of the word . . . It’s the reason I am still in this
business. It’s a painful job – long, difficult.
Useless? Unless you do it from a cultural
perspective, in order to transmit an idea.
Only then can interior design be a little
more useful.
Does the design always start with a
narrative? Yes, but I never tell the story. It’s
Philippe Starck
How different are today’s expectations from
those of, say, five or ten years ago? And have
contemporary demands had an influence on
your interiors? Not at all. I am the least
trendy person in the world.
Sure, the subjects have changed. But the way
to do what I do is the same. You can say that I
know my job better; maybe it’s more precise.
But is that important? I don’t think so.
I lack imagination. I just have a goal
– conscious or subconscious – and I apply
An enormous teapot-cum-lamp dangles
above tables, while the grains of rice that
make up Miss Kō’s logo dance on the wall.
Photos Sophie Delaporte
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At the bar, YouTube videos and the latest
news from Asia appear on a screen that
doubles as a counter.
Watch a computeranimated dragon slither
its way across the counter
with Layar
What do you ask a designer who’s done it all
– designed everything for everybody and
related his story to dozens of interviewers?
To a man known for making audacious
statements – ‘I’m not interested in interior
design’, ‘I’m not intelligent’, ‘I’m irrelevant’
– yet has so much more to say, now that he’s
embarked on the creation of stunning
interiors for hotels and restaurants. Mama
Shelter, La Co(o)rniche, Miss Kō, Ma Cocotte
– each provides a uniquely all-embracing and
captivating experience: ‘a pleasant escape
from reality’. Each emanates life from every
cleft and crevice.
I revised the questions I was instructed
to email Philippe Starck prior to the
interview not once, not twice, but three
times. Yet no sooner had I taken a seat in his
blindingly white office just a stone’s throw
from the Eiffel Tower than I’d crumpled the
latest list of questions and tossed it away.
To Starck’s obvious delight: ‘Let’s talk about
real things.’
See Miss Kō’s dancing
logo with Layar
that goal to my work. If designers say they are
artists, well, not me. I am a semantic
engineer. A poet, a writer – they use words to
express their thoughts. A musician uses
notes. I use textures, light, material – which
is not fun, I can tell you.
Why not? If you compare architecture, design
and interior design, the most complicated is
definitely interior design, which you have to
do millimetre by millimetre. It’s software as
opposed to hardware – you have to adjust it
all the time.
So why do you do it? Seriously, I don’t know.
I ask myself the same question. Designing a
motorcycle is fun. But interiors . . . ? I guess
I do it because public space can be used
…
of a movie director than an interior designer’
An extraordinary and rather spooky fresco by
artist David Rochline adorns a 15-m-long wall.
I slept at Mama Shelter Paris, and I ate at
Miss Kō – both experiences felt like journeys
into another world, full of very different,
contrasting elements, but also with space
for me. How do you do it? Listen, I am not
interested in interior design. What I do is
always a little bit avant-garde, a little bit
rebellious, political, sexual, ecological –
but more than that, it’s semantic work.
Sometimes it’s rational, sometimes a fantasy.
My approach is mainly rational, though, even
when it looks like a fantasy. Compare my
work to making a movie, as I am definitely
more of a movie director than an interior
designer. Strangely, I am not very good at
interior design. But I am very good at making
the movie.
How would you describe a ‘good’ interior
designer? I hardly read any interior
magazines, but when I do I see people with
amazing taste and richness creating incredibly
sophisticated interiors. That’s one difference
between them and me. I would never just
create some nice, sophisticated environment
– which I dislike and which I don’t think
conveys reality. What’s more, I wouldn’t even
know how to do it. I am interested in our
mutation, our evolution, politics, sociology, et
cetera. Sometimes topics like these start to
create a movie in my head, allowing me to use
interior design to paint a bigger picture, to
speak about such subjects and tendencies
through design. I apply my vision to create
this ‘machine’ that exists only to transmit the
desired message through life experiences.
My work as interior designer is a bottle
opener for people’s brains, preferably causing
a temporary short circuit in their brains.
A machine to evoke, to say ‘wake up, create,
make your life, make your civilization’.
I could also write it up and people would read
it and, hopefully, think about what I wrote.
But it would stay all very theoretical. If you
create a physical space and do not speak
about the origin of the idea, people have to
go inside and react.
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W
‘I am definitely more
A gigantic, theatrically illuminated
fresco by artist David Rochline; a
wide-screen bar displaying short
news videos straight from Asia, in a
language surely incomprehensible
to many of the diners at the counter;
neon-lit aluminium cabinets; and a
central ‘food street’: you’ve entered
the wild, weird, wicked wonderland
of Miss Kō, a restaurant based on
a script by Philippe Starck and
featuring a mysterious, faceless
Eurasian seductress.
Interview
Interview
But isn’t change what evolution is all about?
Miss Kō
Philippe Starck
a good metaphor of what I have in mind. If
people grab the meaning of it, it will also be
useful for them. I hate uselessness. Especially
since I am in this business, which is
structurally useless.
Once I have the mental story, I start to
write the script. Who will be entering? Why?
What time of day? With whom will they come
– girlfriend, business partner, mother? What
will be their mood? These are the precise
parameters I gather in my head. Then I
visualize what will be their first emotion.
Metre by metre, scene after scene, I prepare
their experiences. In the end, it needs to be a
coherent movie. I hope they won’t say: Oh it
was so beautiful, so trendy, so chic. I hate
trendy and chic. Maybe they leave saying:
Hey, I have an idea. But the best is when they
don’t realize the place gave them the idea,
even when the scenario has given them
energy – a fertile surprise. I don’t want to
impose my personal ideas on them.
Feverish
Dream
Future
Society
… as a means to convey a message through
Starck says his concept for Mama
Shelter, a chain that includes recently
opened hotels in Istanbul and Lyon,
is based on freedom and respect for
a society that recognizes the value
of people rather than their financial
wealth. Guests are encouraged to
write on walls and ceilings. Long
tables promote communication,
and plastic masks and rubber-ring
pendant lamps aim a friendly nod at
haute design.
Why would you quit? The world of interiors is
still on fire. Won’t there always be issues to
address? Times have changed. The useless
experience, to reach people. As long as I have
things to say, I will continue. Although it will
be less and less. Theoretically – and don’t pin
me down on this – we quit making interiors at
the end of this year.
side of interior design is becoming more and
more evident. In architecture you can help,
because people need a roof. You can work in
an economical, environmental way to help
people buy a quality home at an affordable
price. In design, there is still so much to be
invented. First, the style of our new poverty,
as Europe is at the edge of a new era. What
will our new poorness look like? It’s a new
‘I designed Mama Shelter for people who,
for whatever reason, have forgotten about
money,’ says Philippe Starck.
Photos Francis Amiand
‘Only if you use
have other priorities than thinking about the
colour pink in our bedroom. You know,
interior design is not the right political
vehicle. Perhaps architecture is, although
I am in doubt. But what we truly need is to
invent post-oil-era plastics. In 20 years, we
won’t have oil. In theory, if there is no
solution we will return to the Middle Ages.
People don’t realize it, but we’re living today
in the illusion of yesterday.
My yesterday included a visit to a restaurant
you designed here in the city – Miss Kō.
‘A crazy collage, an insane re-creation of a
street somewhere in Asia, where technology
reveals an exciting tomorrow,’ I’d been told.
interior design to transmit an idea is it useful’
Mama Shelter’s trademark ceilings highlight
the chain’s recently opened hotel in Istanbul.
What can you tell me about Miss Kō? There’s
little I can say about the project in words.
The script? An adventure in hospitality.
A street out of Blade Runner. A dream –
feverish, crazy strange. That’s all it is, and
it is, above all, that.
Is this what you mean by ‘semantic work’?
We are transforming tools into weapons.
I’ve been creating tools, but now we need
weapons. You asked me how I work. Now
you have the answer.
_
starck.com
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Shelter Paris was designed with foresight; it’s
based on a society ten years from now – on
people without money. That’s why it’s got
such a coherent look, which includes the
values of today and tomorrow.
What sort of values? The first is freedom.
There is no style; you can write on the walls
and ceilings. But more importantly,
I designed Mama Shelter for people who,
for whatever reason, have forgotten about
money. Those with money can spend €3000
a night to sleep at Le Royal Monceau. But if
you’re a young guy who hasn’t made a fortune
yet, an unrecognized artist, an old scientist
who’s a genius – the most valuable person in
the world, but no money – to those people
I say: I respect you, and I respect you even
more because you’ve forgotten about making
money. Mama Shelter is here to show respect
to the other side of the society – the side
not driven by money. People subconsciously
realize this, and that’s the reason for
its success.
transforming the world. Maybe there is
one guy with the answer, a scientist whose
company went bankrupt. But, and here comes
the magic, the value lies in the amount of
answers. After you collect a certain number
of similar answers, you know you’ve got the
right one.
How does the future look? Very soon
we will stop doing architecture and interior
design but continue a bit with product design,
as I have responsibilities to the companies
that produce my work. We don’t need to stop
making democratic design, but we do need
to lower the prices using new technology and
so forth.
Listening to you, I wonder why you want
to stop making such a powerful tool. Life is
short. I have made a zillion things, and now
it’s time to prioritize. Industrial design is a
better vehicle than interior design for dealing
with the issues we are facing today. Design
can make a better life, but can it save lives?
This is where I’m at now. How can I take
action to try to save life?
You use the word ‘action’ intentionally? What
I mean is something that gives a result, an
effect without producing materiality.
What nonphysical things should I be thinking
of? We are working on a laboratory for
creativity, collaborating with scientists, to
Interview
Interview
And how does the Mama Shelter chain fit in
with what you’ve been telling me? Two new
hotels recently opened in Istanbul and Lyon.
Is Mama Shelter the interior of today – a
place that satisfies current demands? Mama
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understand why we have ideas. Why do we
create? It’s the only difference between
people and pigs. Our raison d’être is to create
– babies, concepts. If we understand how
creativity works, maybe we can improve it.
My new job is not to create something, but to
create creators.
In relation to this, we are setting up a
gigantic think-thank called The Brain. Its
purpose? To federate all jobless people in the
world, at least the ones we know – currently
we have the email addresses and telephone
numbers of 230 million people. These people
have lost everything, first and foremost their
dignity. I want to change the term ‘jobless’,
which is a shame, into ‘thinker’. Think about
it: 230 million thinkers who will be asked
vital questions aimed at saving people,
Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck
Mama Shelter
style in itself. But interior design we
don’t need.
But we still need experiences. I hope we will
Doors, carpets, walls and ceilings look like
they’ve been scribbled on at Mama Shelter.