27 March 2008 - 20H04
Philippe Starck to quit 'useless' design
French design prophet Philippe Starck confessed to German magazine Die Zeit that design was superficial, saying he was ashamed of driving materialistic culture the way he did and still does. He also said he would retire in two years' time.
Renowned French designer Philippe Starck says he is fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years, in an interview published in a German weekly on Thursday.
"I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact," Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.
"Everything I designed was unnecessary.
"I will definitely give up in two years' time. I want to do something else, but I don't know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself ...design is a dreadful form of expression."
Starck, who is known for his interior design of hotels and Eurostar trains and mass consumption objects ranging from chairs to tooth brushes and lemon juice squeezers, went on to say that he believed that design on the whole was dead.
"In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant," he said.
Starck said the only objects that he still felt attached to were "a pillow perhaps and a good mattress." But the thing one needs most, he added, was the "ability to love".
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Comments
starck
modern design is about taking something perfect & making it less so. the lemon squeezer was already invented...all starck did was make a functional object LESS FUNCTIONAL. modern design, like modern art, is about creating a need that does not exist in order to make money...something starck has done very well. his comments are typically french...superficially controversial but without weight. retire now, sell your many homes, distribute the huge wealth you have accrued amoungst the needy & live the simple life you claim only to need.
anything, for some more attention ?
I agree with the first comment that the two year millestone sounds a bit off with the rest of the comments (which I like and agre with, and respect).
Why not today?
Flip flop Phillipe
If Mr. Starck realizes that design is useless and he is just pushing useless materialism then why doesn't he retire today? Does he still have some more last minute junk he needs to push out the door?