I no longer wish to talk about design
Extract of a conversation between Philippe Starck and Pierre Doze, Paris, December 2002. Exerpt from the book 'Starck by Starck'.
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It is striking to see the extreme similarity between these scienti.c propositions and the forms that recur in all times, places and civilisations.
One example among many is the general form of the vase, the amphora. The curves it describes represent the proportions of the universe with some accuracy. In the pre-Big Bang, we find the plinth. The Big Bang is the foot.
The swelling body of the vase is that of the expanding universe. Its neck is a slight contraction followed by a weak expansion.
Moreover, experiments show that the retinal persistence of a multitude of human faces creates a single face not unlike that of the Mona Lisa, a picture almost universally esteemed the canonic Western representation of humanity.
These clues - mingled with children's suggestions and compared with physicists' remarks - might tend to prove the existence of a single unconscious comprehension, at work worldwide, along with a structural harmony between human functioning and the laws governing it. Clues.
Renaissance
The elements linking me to Venice are many, and the links more coherent than this succession of fragments might suggest. In my love for the city is also my desire for a return to mud, fertile mud. I find myself again in that primordial soup whence arose the modernity of the Renaissance. My inspiration is perhaps the merest spectre of a dream, but in all my preoccupations there is a tacit intention, that of establishing a form of society enrooted in the example of the Venetian Republic. A city peopled with scientists, philosophers and enlightened traders. A prototype that gave birth to a paradigm of civilisation.
In the race to the lagoon, I see a possible antidote to that eternal threat, the return of barbarity.
Poetry
Strangely enough, it has taken me 50 years to understand that "poetry" is an important word, in its abnormal, active, subversive aspect. My lack of interest in finished poetry is matched only by my interest in tracking it down and casting light on its manifestations through the different scales of matter or time.
I should like to close this circle by turning over in my bed and scrutinising the stars. Scientific publications are a good lens to place between ourselves and the sky. In them, I have found two pieces of information that leave me ultimately happy and optimistic: the discovery, in space, of a monolithic green diamond, as large as the earth, and that of an asteroid resembling a dog's bone, the size of the state of New Jersey. Thus begins the discovery of Surrealist stellar bric-à-brac on a very large scale. One good reason to wake up in the morning with a smile... (...)
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
It is striking to see the extreme similarity between these scienti.c propositions and the forms that recur in all times, places and civilisations.
One example among many is the general form of the vase, the amphora. The curves it describes represent the proportions of the universe with some accuracy. In the pre-Big Bang, we find the plinth. The Big Bang is the foot.
The swelling body of the vase is that of the expanding universe. Its neck is a slight contraction followed by a weak expansion.
Moreover, experiments show that the retinal persistence of a multitude of human faces creates a single face not unlike that of the Mona Lisa, a picture almost universally esteemed the canonic Western representation of humanity.
These clues - mingled with children's suggestions and compared with physicists' remarks - might tend to prove the existence of a single unconscious comprehension, at work worldwide, along with a structural harmony between human functioning and the laws governing it. Clues.
Renaissance
The elements linking me to Venice are many, and the links more coherent than this succession of fragments might suggest. In my love for the city is also my desire for a return to mud, fertile mud. I find myself again in that primordial soup whence arose the modernity of the Renaissance. My inspiration is perhaps the merest spectre of a dream, but in all my preoccupations there is a tacit intention, that of establishing a form of society enrooted in the example of the Venetian Republic. A city peopled with scientists, philosophers and enlightened traders. A prototype that gave birth to a paradigm of civilisation.
In the race to the lagoon, I see a possible antidote to that eternal threat, the return of barbarity.
Poetry
Strangely enough, it has taken me 50 years to understand that "poetry" is an important word, in its abnormal, active, subversive aspect. My lack of interest in finished poetry is matched only by my interest in tracking it down and casting light on its manifestations through the different scales of matter or time.
I should like to close this circle by turning over in my bed and scrutinising the stars. Scientific publications are a good lens to place between ourselves and the sky. In them, I have found two pieces of information that leave me ultimately happy and optimistic: the discovery, in space, of a monolithic green diamond, as large as the earth, and that of an asteroid resembling a dog's bone, the size of the state of New Jersey. Thus begins the discovery of Surrealist stellar bric-à-brac on a very large scale. One good reason to wake up in the morning with a smile... (...)
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Starck by Starck
Flexicover, 19.6 x 25.8 cm (7.7 x 10.2 in.), 576 pages
$ 39.99
$ 39.99
It's a bird... it's a plane... it's Superstarck!
Olympic Flame for the Winter Olympics at Albertville, 1992
Apriti (door handle), 1991