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Designers

Philippe Starck

Enfant terrible and court jester of the international design jet-set, Philippe Starck is the best-known designer of our times, as well as one of the most prolific: his cult objects have proved as successful in the marketplace as they have with design critics. He has said that the designer’s role is to create more “happiness” with less.

His success has been built on his ability to translate his sometimes prophetic insight to social and cultural changes in Western society into objects, spaces and buildings. The son of an aircraft designer, he has inherited his father’s love of technology and penchant for futuristic design – it comes as no surprise to learn that many of his furniture pieces are named after characters in the novels of visionary sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.

Driven by his omnivorous curiosity, he has made a name for himself in many areas of contemporary design. As an interior designer, he first attracted notice in the mid 1970s with two Paris nightclubs, La Main Bleue and Les Bains-Douches, and was commissioned to decorate and furnish President Mitterand’s private apartment in the Elysée Palace in 1982. These were precursor of the spectacularly successful Café Costes, in turn the inspirational prototype for later designs like the Paramount Hotel and the Royalton Hotel in New York, the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach, the Manin restaurant in Tokyo and the Felix restaurant in Hong Kong.

During the 90’s Starck began to promote product longevity and to stipulate that morality, honesty and objectivity become part of the design process. Starck’s approach to design is subversive, intelligent and always interesting. His objects surprise and delight even as they transgress boundaries and subvert expectations.

Luminaire welcomed Philippe Starck to Miami in February 2004 with a reception marking Luminaire’s 30th anniversary and celebrating his South Beach luxury high-rise, Icon, designed for the Related Group of South Florida.