French designer Philippe Starck. Image by JB Mondino.
Legendary French designer Philippe Starck gives Mark C. O?Flaherty his radical vision of the future: a time when designers won?t be needed ? and maybe even chairs
?I?m not interested in aesthetics anymore,? says Philippe Starck, sipping on a glass of mineral water in the Royal Academy in London. ?I am interested only in our evolution, and how the intelligent craft of human production is going to be rerun by dematerialisation. We are working on making things disappear.? As Starck speaks, I notice the periodic flashing of a red LED from beneath the skin on a fingertip of his left hand. It?s extraordinary. I ask him what it does ? is it connected somehow to his laptop, perhaps" ?Ah, it?s magic!? he says, cryptically, before steering the conversation to his ongoing project with the Roederer champagne house: ?I never wanted to just design a bottle, I wanted to share in the making of what was inside. And it was about creating something that had less in it, nothing added, no sugar.? Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine
We are at the Royal Academy for the launch of the new Roederer-Starck 2012 rosé champagne, where he is judging a competition between 13 artists at the Academy?s Schools to interpret the taste of the champagne through their art. His choice of winner ? a white-on-white embossed spiral on paper called Cycles, by Sofía Clausse ? is apposite for his ongoing philosophy of design: ?It was the most accessible ...