Philippe Strack

Philippe Starck is a French product designer and interior designer, born 18 January 1949 in Paris. He is equally well known as an interior designer, a designer of consumer goods, and for his industrial design and his architectural creations. Philippe Starck started his career in the 1980s.

Starck studied at the Ecole Camondo in Paris. An inflatable structure he imagined in 1969 was a first incursion into questions of materiality, and an early indicator of Starck's interest in where and how people live. Starck's iconoclastic designs brought him to the attention of Pierre Cardin who offered him a job as artistic director of his publishing house.
At the same time, Starck set up his first industrial design company, Starck Product - which he later renamed Ubik and began working with manufacturers in Italy and internationally. His concept of democratic design led him to focus on mass-produced consumer goods rather than one-off pieces, seeking ways to reduce cost and improve quality in mass-market goods.
Starck's prolific output expanded to include furniture, decoration, architecture, street furniture, industry (wind turbines, photo booths), bathroom fittings, kitchens, floor and wall coverings, lighting, domestic appliances, office equipment such as staplers, utensils (including a juice squeezer and a toothbrush), tableware, clothing, accessories (shoes, eyewear, luggage, watches) toys, glassware (perfume bottles, mirrors), graphic design and publishing, even food (Panzani pasta, Lenotre Yule log), and vehicles for land, sea, air and space (bikes, motorbikes, yachts, planes). 
For the past thirty years Philippe Starck has been designing hotels all over the world, including the Royalton in New York in 1988, the Delano in Miami in 1995, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, the St Martin's Lane in London in 1999, and the Sanderson, also in London, in 2000. In South America, Philippe Starck designed the inside and outside of the Hotel Fasano in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 using materials such as wood, glass and marble. He then turned his attention to luxury hotels: in 2008, Le Meurice and the Royal Monceau in 2010.



Through his "democratic design" concept, Starck campaigns for well-designed, quality objects that are not just reserved for an elite. He would put this utopian idea into practice by increasing production quantities to cut costs and by using mail-order.