Juicy Salif — Alessi. Portrait of Philippe Starck.
Philippe Starck, the brilliant French designer, has designed nearly everything: motorcycles, mineral water bottles, radios, televisions, furniture, toothbrushes, lamps, kitchen utensils, interior design of hotels and restaurants. His aim has been to change our notion of objects and the world surrounding us. He has succeeded in changing the formal equipment of everyday life into artistic objects.
Juicy Salif — a device for squeezing lemon juice, which at first glance may not reveal its function. The appearance of Juicy Salif resembles a sculpture more than a juicer — a sculpture that brings to mind the extraterrestrial creatures of H. G. Wells's stories. Yet, in any case, it is a good device for squeezing lemon juice. This is the distinguishing characteristic of Philippe Starck's works.
Starck designed the Juicy Salif in 1990 for Alessi, and to date more than 600,000 units have been sold. According to Starck himself, the original idea came to him while eating squid at a small restaurant called Il Corsaro on the island of Capraia, and right there on the paper napkin he sketched its preliminary designs. The titles Starck chooses for his designs are often strange and poetic — such as Juicy Salif for the lemon squeezer, Prince Aha for a stool, and Dr. Scud for a fly swatter.
Starck, after abandoning his studies at twenty-three, became the art director of Cardin. At twenty-five, he went to America, and two years later, after returning to Paris, executed the interior design of the La Main Bleu nightclub. The success of this project led President Francois Mitterrand to invite him to transform one of the residential apartments in the Elysee Palace. By the age of thirty, Starck became so famous that he was invited to create transformations in design conventions of various cities around the world.
The interior design of four famous American hotels — the Royalton and Paramount in New York, the Delano in Miami, and the Mondrian in Los Angeles — as well as the Peninsula in Hong Kong and the Asahi building in Tokyo are among his works.
Walter Wayle watch — Alessi. Jim Nature television — Saba. Moto 6.5 motorcycle — Aprilia. Ara lamp — Flos.
This fifty-two-year-old Frenchman is an extraordinarily prolific designer. Motorcycles for Aprilia, mineral water bottles for Saint Bernard, radio and television for Thompson and Saba, furniture for L'Oreal Paris, toothbrush for Fluocaril, lamps for Flos, kitchen utensils for Alessi, furniture for Vitra, Kartell, and Driade. It would perhaps not be far from the truth to call him the most prolific designer of the contemporary world.
Starck, the humble and emotional citizen of the world, has concentrated all his power on changing our perceptions of objects and the world around us. In his design, he tries to make us understand that for squeezing lemon juice one can use something that is itself a sculpture, and even a fly swatter can be an object with identity. He teaches us that our televisions, instead of being large dark boxes, can be intimate and pleasant objects. Starck works with his heart as well as his mind in the design process. What he creates is as beautiful and pleasant as it is well-functioning.
Furniture for L'Oreal Paris. Toothbrush for Fluocaril. La Chinoise — Alessi. Hot Bertha kettle — Alessi.
He believes that the design problem of our time is no longer the slogan that David Leowy expressed in the 1950s: "Ugly objects sell poorly." Perhaps the success of today's design is largely a result of it. But now, when you face designing a new product, you confront two important issues: there is probably no longer any need that has not been met, and there is probably no form that has not been explored. You can create a successful design when you deviate from the routine.
Dr. Scud fly swatter — Alessi. Sanderson Hotel, London. Ero-s chair — Kartell. Bon restaurant, Paris.