Nothing is usual in Philippe Starck. Neither his works – from everyday objects such as a juicer, faucets, motorcycles or furniture to hotels, prefabricated houses or yachts – nor his pace of production – at 75 years old, he has more than 10,000 signed designs – nor his way of working – by hand, on tracing paper and with pencil, both of a certain type and brand – nor his life – for a few years now, immersed in a farm in the middle of nature in Sintra, Portugal, together with his fourth wife and fifth daughter-. Nor was it going to be, therefore, having a coffee with him. To begin with, the famous French industrial designer only drinks natural juices and infusions and occasionally some “organic sulfate-free wine.” Furthermore, although to work he needs the solitude of his studio and absolute silence around him (also for this talk) and he can dedicate an entire day to it without stopping or eating, for this interview he only allows ten minutes, and it is perceived that his The mind tends to get restless and launch itself into its own impregnable labyrinths. The meeting takes place taking advantage of his visit to Spain to present the monumental oil mill that he has designed in Ronda, a million-dollar project that has been launched after more than ten years in operation as an olive oil museum and the first author’s press in the world, a bit in the image and likeness of the spectacular Marqués de Riscal winery designed by his Canadian colleague Frank Gehry. On Malaga soil, Starck (Paris, 1949), defender of emotional design, functionality and sustainability applied to all of this, nevertheless wanted to build an emblematic work, to be visited and remembered, resounding. “Nothing is normal here,” he declares when opening it to the press, hours before its opening to the public. “This is not a building, it is not an architectural project, it is the crystallization of the passion of passions,” he adds, struck, as he says, by the local people and culture, to whom he pays tribute in the enormous red cube that he has decided to place at the top of the Ronda mountain range with the horn and the rapier – bullfighting – and the Picasso eye almost like any ornament. Owner of a peculiar style, irreverent and sensitive, joking and curious but at the same time distant, as if behind While his true self is glued to a tremendously powerful telescope from a distant creative galaxy (“I’m not kind, but I never lie,” he warns, for example), Starck chooses a large empty room to sit down and talk to Summum. Creativity is your hallmark, do you think it will ever run out? You ask me if my abnormal creativity will end one day… I don’t think so, because it is an illness and it would be strange for it to disappear completely. I have a fantasy of thinking that if I stop creating it should disappear, like a powder, like a perfume. So the answer is no, because that’s the only thing I want to do. He says that he spends the entire day working, and that is even though he is already someone known and reputed. How do you maintain that energy and curiosity? You are surprised because I work 12 to 14 hours a day, but I am not an entrepreneur, that means that at home I don’t have a company where people create and design and I have to sign a contract. I don’t know my alphabet, I don’t know the multiplication table, I don’t know anything about real life. I am very sick, I am sick of creation. It’s my drug, it’s my life, I’m a ghost, I don’t talk to anyone, I live in the middle of nowhere, I’m not even very funny, maybe sometimes, but it’s my life. He designs houses, yachts, furniture and things, but he lives in the middle of nature. Do we need all these objects? I try to live with the minimum. A way of living with a minimum is called nature. In nature everything is essential, and I try to have only essential things for my family. In my case, I live like a monk, I don’t need anything, just have the things I use to crystallize my ideas, something I have to do very, very quickly, because I was born without memory. If I don’t write it down, if I don’t do the project right away, in a few minutes I completely forget about it. That’s why I have few things, but they are perfect, everything around me is always perfect. What do you need to work? Apart from your mind. I don’t have a computer, I don’t have a phone, I do have something very good to listen to music and a fantastic playlist. I have organic food, diet food, although we doubt the result (he jokes, pointing to his figure). There is no noise around me. I have a few good friends. I have no problems. My wife solved all the problems in life around me, she has created a glass bubble. So I don’t know anything about real life, because I’m quite sensitive. And I don’t want to sound strange, but I take some very strong, inelegant things in life very personally, so I don’t need much. Only the paper that is made especially for me, so I can travel and if there is a different level of altitude or humidity it does not curl or spoil, and the same Japanese pencil for 40 years. That and any kitchen table and my music is enough. And your head, how does it work? My mind works without me. That means that mine is an absolutely intuitive, solitary job. I’m not smart, but I’m an intuition monster. The idea comes to me already finished, I don’t work on it, I just wait and print it. I print what my subconscious offers me. Then I design it immediately, put it on the table and assess whether it deserves to exist or not, for whatever reason. I put it to the test, I refine it, I filter it until it is at a minimum. What he says requires self-confidence, because sometimes you have intuition but you don’t trust it. It’s a very strong question. Wondering if my job means I’m confident. Yes and no. I have no confidence in myself at all. In fact, I have a kind of contempt for myself, I don’t like myself. And that’s why I continue working, because I always think that I should be better, that I should do it with more honesty, with more talent, with more creativity. You need a certain naivety to say look, here’s this, I’ve dreamed about it, I think it could be good for you, I’m proposing it to you, you can take it or leave it, if you want it, try it and we’ll see. And that’s all. I always have anxiety to say the least. I have enough madness and innocence to have the courage to say this. It talks about the functionality of things. In your creation process, how are color, materials, function of the object and beauty related? You talk about beauty and functionality and things like that. I am not at all interested in what people call beauty or consider beautiful. Because today we think it’s beautiful, in three years we will hate it, at 17 we will want it again… it’s not serious. We cannot consume things just because we like them or we don’t like them. “My God, it’s so beautiful!” or “Oh my God, it’s so ugly!” You can’t work like that. The first question is, do we need what we have around us? If I go into a store and see this beautiful cup, the only eco-friendly thing I have to do is say, “Oh my gosh, I love this! Oh my god, Philip Starck designed it! I love it! But do I need it? Honestly. And honestly, in 80 percent of cases the answer will be no, that’s enough. But if you answer yes, in that case you still have to see if it is made of the right material, ecological, if it has the right price, if it has not involved slave labor, if you should buy it in three months and if that object will be able to be part of my life, that of my daughter and that of my granddaughter. And if it is functional. I am an absolute functionalist. I don’t do anything that isn’t purely functional. It is not the functionalism of the 1920s, when it was only a materialist issue. My functionalism is with self-awareness, intuition, fantasy, humor, poetry and a lot of other things. THE Oil Mill, in Ronda, and Philippe Starck in its gardens. Ignacio Gil: In what professional and vital moment are you? He is very well known, he has explored different fields. What is your purpose now? My purpose is to continue answering as best I can to all the new questions that arise every minute. Unfortunately, we are in a very unstable moment of civilization, in which every minute there is a question. And there are many questions, unfortunately the least important ones, that I can answer. I keep doing that. And then I continue working, because I have to create, because for me it is natural. Can you imagine doing anything other than designing and creating? Absolutely not. I repeat, I only know how to create. All the other things don’t interest me. No games, parties, vacations, weekends interest me, all that is boring to me. I always travel with my papers because that way I make sure that if I have the right idea, I can draw it. Why do something else when you can do something so exciting and beautiful? And he is very aware of the environment and what we are doing with the planet and nature. Why does it happen? Why are we destroying instead of creating? Luckily, not because of my intelligence, when I was 16 I met a man, a young American environmentalist, who explained everything to me. Then I continued with this. I am not a nostalgic environmentalist, I am an active, political and technological environmentalist, I am completely involved with it. I push the industry to have bioplastic and other new materials. I was one of the first to talk about organic food, in fact I created a company dedicated to it. There is no option, there is no possible choice. When you read about disappeared civilizations you should know that it happened because of the same thing we do now: not managing resources, water, food, and things like that well. They died, they became extinct. We are exactly as fragile, and that is why we must think twice about everything we do.Very Summum What is always on your work table? My tracing paper and my pencil made especially for me to resist all types of climates and humidity, so I can work always and anywhere. And in your pantry? LA Organic extra virgin olive oil, royal jelly and quinoa, which I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. An unforgettable trip? I don’t travel for pleasure, but every night, when I fall asleep, I fly to wonderful and unknown places, to new mysterious and always amazingly creative territories. A pending subject? The evolution of our animal species is our pending and unfinished task. And we must all participate. Your most precious object? My brain. Motorcycle or car? Motorcycles are my freedom, I was born with them. In fact, I don’t have feet, but wheels. Dog or cat? We have two dogs at home, they belong to my daughter. But I don’t like giving orders to anyone. Coffee or tea? I avoid any form of stimulants. That’s why I don’t drink coffee, and when I do drink tea, which isn’t often, it’s organic matcha or samurai. For you, luxury is… Luxury must be urgently replaced by quality and intelligence. How do you see yourself in ten years? I hope to see a civilized society before I die. We are in one of his creations. Do you fall in love with them, do you have a favorite? No, I never fall in love with what I do because I always regret it: it is not perfect enough, it is not completely well done. And also, like I said, because I have no memory. I arrived here two weeks ago to talk to a photographer. And since I don’t remember anything at all, even if I have designed it completely for 13 years like in this case, when I got there and saw it, I cried. It was so incredible, so different, so another place, that I cried. I found my place here, where everything seems abnormal, strange, where everything is exaggerated, emotional, poetic. For me, it is a place that awakens your mind. And that is very important, awakening your mind. It’s not that I want this place, I’m addicted to it. I’m always addicted to something.
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