Space Age Bistro Table by Philippe Starck for Kartell, 1980s

Born in 1949 in Paris, designer Philippe Starck has been described as a provocateur, a defender of democratic design, and “a superstar on the French design scene.” It’s said that as a child, Starck slept under the drafting table of his father, who was an inventor and aeronautics engineer. Starck went on to study at the École Camondo in Paris, but was later quoted as saying that he “learned nothing” there and was, instead, driven by his own curiosity.

Around 1968, Starck set up his own studio in Paris, with a special focus on inflatable designs; he collaborated with the master of blow-up furniture, designer Quasar Khanh. The following year, Starck debuted an inflatable structure at Salon de l’Enfance and caught the attention of fashion designer Pierre Cardin, who straightaway offered him an art director position. 

In the mid to late 1970s, Starck found success designing nightclub interiors, like La Main Bleue in Montreuil and Les Bain Douches in Paris. As the 1980s neared, Starck launched a company called Starck Product—later named Ubik after the Philip K. Dick novel—and began producing furniture, lighting, and accessory designs for major manufacturers like Alessi, Driade,  Flos, Kartell, and Vitra.

In 1983, Starck’s international design celebrity began to build when French president François Mitterrand invited him to renovate the private apartments of the Élysée Palace. Not long after, Starck began to receive regular commissions for restaurant and hotel interiors. Highlights from this phase of his career include Café Costes in Paris (1984), Manin in Tokyo (1985), Theatron in Mexico City (1985), the Royalton (1988) and Paramount (1990) hotels in New York City, and the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach (1995). In 1999, Starck partnered with developer John Hitchcox to launch Yoo, a design firm dedicated to residential and commercial interiors.

Starck is arguably the most prolific designer living today, and any listing of his many iconic works must be abbreviated. Among the standouts, however, you’ll find Miss Dorn Chair for VIA and later for Driade (1980); Pat Conley I Chair for XO (1983); J. Série Lang Chair for Driade (1986); Hot Bertaa Kettle for Alessi (1987); Miss Donna Mirror for OWO and later for Alessi (1987); Lola Mundo Chair for Driade (1988); Juicy Salif Lemon Squeezer for Alessi (1990); W.W. Stool for Vitra (1990); Louis 20 Chair for Vitra (1991); Miss Sissi Table Lamp for Flos (1991); Vicieuse Coffee Table for Driade (1992); Excalibur Toilet Brush for Heller (1993); Jim Nature Portable Television for Thomson (1994); Rosy Angelis Lamp for Flos (1994); Dr. No Chair for Kartell (1996); Dr. Scud Fly Swatter for Alessi (1998); La Marie Chair for Kartell (1998); Miss C.O.C.O. Folding Chair for Cassina (1998); Gnome Stools for Kartell (1999); Bubble Club Sofa for Kartell (2000); Hudson Chair for Emeco (2000); Louis Ghost Chair for Kartell (2002); and Guns Lamp for Flos (2005).

In addition to furniture, electronics, and product design, Starck has tackled several larger-scale designs, like the Alhóndiga Cultural & Leisure Centure in Bilbao (2010), Port Adriano Harbor in Palma de Mallorca (2012), Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s yacht (2012), P.A.T.H Prefabricated Homes for Riko (2013), and Le Nuage Sports Center in Montpellier (2014), among many others.

Starck’s work can be found in most European and American museums, including the Musée National d’Art Moderne and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, and Design Museum London. The Pompidou Center hosted a Starck retrospective in 2003. His many awards are too numerous to name.

Specialized in luxury plastic furniture and decorative objects, Italian design brand Kartell was founded by Giulio Castelli (1920-2006) and his wife Anna Ferrieri (1918-2006) in Milan in 1949. The son of a plastics researcher, Castelli was attracted to experimental, new materials from an early age and went on to study chemical engineering under Nobel Prize winning chemist Giulio Natta. Ferrieri, meanwhile, studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano under influential, neo-rationalist architect-designer Franco Albini.

In the early years of the postwar era, Castelli and Ferrieri were eager to contribute to their country’s reconstruction through high quality and innovative industrial design. At first the company concentrated on automotive accessories, like the K101 Ski Rack (1950). In 1953, however, Kartell launched its Housewares Division and began to produce the eye-catching, molded plastic interiors objects for which the company is internationally known today.

In the 1950s, polypropylene plastic was still widely thought to be an unusual material for domestic settings. Kartell’s earliest designs tended to be small tools for the kitchen. Highlights from this phase of Kartell’s history include the KS 1146 Bucket (1955), KS 1475 Carpet Beater (1957), KS 1068 Standing Dustpan (1958), KS 1481 Lemon Squeezer (1959), and Model KS 1171/2 Dish Drainer (1960), all by designer Gino Colombini and all in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Colombini’s bucket was awarded a Compasso d’Oro prize in 1955. 

In the 1960s, Castelli and Ferrieri became determined to change perceptions of plastic by using it in the creation of stylish yet functional furniture and interior décor. The Habitat Division of Kartell launched in 1963 and led to the K 4999/K 1340 Children’s Chair, designed by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper in 1964—the world’s first plastic chair and a Compasso d’Oro winner in ’64. The following year, Joe Colombo worked with Kartell to produce the bent plywood 4801 Chair (1965), Kartell’s only wholly wood product.

In 1967, Kartell inaugurated its new headquarters in Noviglio, designed by Ferrieri and, since 1999, home to the Museo Kartell. That same year, Colombo created Kartell’s 4867 Universal Chair (1967), the first chair made in a single piece using injection-molded plastic. Now considered a landmark of design history, the Universal Chair is found in museum collections the world over. Other iconic Kartell designs from the 1960s include Colombo’s KD27 Table Lamp (1967), Gae Aulenti’s Re Sole Lamp (1967), and Ferrieri’s 4966 Componibili Storage Module (1969). 

Kartell’s place in design history hit a new level when the company’s designs were included in the legendary Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition at MoMA New York in 1972. Kartell’s molded plastic pieces fit perfectly alongside the space-age aesthetics of designers and studios like Archizoom, the Castiglioni brothers, Vico Magistretti, Gaetano Pesce, Ettore Sottsass, and Superstudio, who were all also exhibited in this vanguard show. 

In 1988, the Castelli couple decided to sell their company to their son-in-law, former managing director of Versace, Claudio Luti. After ten years in the fashion industry, the Italian entrepreneur took over Kartell and expanded the roster of contributing designers to include the likes of Ron Arad, Antonio Citterio, Vico Magistretti, Philippe Starck, and Marteen van Severen. As a result, the 1990s and early 2000s proved highly successful for Kartell. Standouts from this turn-of-the-millennium era include Arad’s Bookworm Wall Shelf (1994), Citterio’s Mobil Drawers System (1994), Magistretti’s Maui Chair (1996), Starck’s La Marie Chair (1998), van Severen’s LCP Chair (1999), Starck’s Bubble Club Sofa (2000), and Starck’s Louis Ghost Chair (2002).

Today, Kartell continues to serve as a benchmark in contemporary design culture. In recent years, Kartell has produced the designs of Front, Nendo, Patricia Urquiola, and Tokujin Yoshioka, to name a few. The company’s designs can be found in public and private museums around the world.

For more information, see Kartell: The Culture of Plastics, published by Taschen in 2013.