Starck's latest abomination
The "Masters" chair:


"Philippe Starck has designed the Masters chair for Kartell. With lively sinuous lines, the Masters chair combines the outlines of three of the most famous chairs in modern design. Arne Jacobsen's Series 7 Chair, Eero Saarinen's Tulip Armchair, and Charles Eames' Shell Chair."

I really cannot stand...
I really cannot stand post-modernist drivel.

Um
Wow. I'm stunned.

This does not qualify as design, by any stretch.

Starck once again has stuck an electrode in the pain center of modernists....
but once again the response tends to be negative emoting, rather than rational criticism.

The most effective antidotes to the post-modern, or to any other form of decadence (and that is all that post-modern really is), is humane reason.

Here is what is wrong with the Starck chair:

1. The legs, lacking bracing, are probably flimsy and very likely to bend, or break, when subjected to the tipping and leaning such chairs are exposed to, whether used in public places, at breakfast tables, at pool sides, or what have you. They also appear too skinny for the upper part of the chair so leave it looking as unstable as it probably in fact is.

2. It has vestigial arms that cannot comfortably accomodate a pair of human forearms; thus the arms have no function except bracing, which could have been achieved with less material and more elegance without them.

3. The vestigial wing backs are too low lean one's head against for a snooze, even if one were to be so masochistic as to wish to rest one's head on metal tubing. They also provide no useful comforting of the trunk, and probably somewhat over-restrict upper body movement to no effective end.

4. Where there should be lumbar support, there is a big hole.

This is a chair designed for persons who wish to buy amusing looking chairs that are uncomfortable for other persons to sit on.

End of discussion. No emoting necessary.

I don't either...
He was trying to create a witty, amusing, tubular allusion of an shell chair, into which he telescoped a bunch of allusions to other kinds of chairs.

What you are really looking at is a chair as an epic couplet. In an epic couplet in poetry a poet is trying to jam in as many allusions as possible into two lines. The couplet has a literal meaning, but can then be unpacked into a multitude of allusive significances. Equivalents of allusive conceits are found in painting and sculture, and unfortunately, in post modernism, under almost any product that is designed.

We are, in short, being given an allusive conceit of a chair, with some utility, rather than just the best chair he can make, unless one holds a philosphy that allusion is crucial to excellent design, which I reject, finding much allusion ridiculously extraneous.

Starck is using allusion to play with, pun about and comment on minimalism, if you wish to give the devil his due. And I do, because I like Starck, despite not sharing his philosophy that compells him toward the post modern.

The minimalist utility is a pun on the use of tubing in the modern and the minimalist. The over use of typically minimalist materials is his ironic counterpoint, his rebellion against the rationalism in the modern that Starck apparently finds oppressive and suffocating. Starck is making huge fun of minimalism here, which is easy for me to laugh at, too, because I think minimalist modernism was/is an unfortunate cul de sac, itself.

I increasingly think many modernisti fail to understand post modernism, or post modernisti, with any profundity, because they simply do not want to, because exploring the philosophical conflict between these two ism is very uncomfortable to modernisti. They are offended by the post moderns's insistence on the irrational and believe in the virtues of modernist rationality.

continued
I strongly hold with Piano's approach, as being the more humane and sensible and fruitful. But I understand also that Gehry's approach can produce nonlinear leaps in creativity and understanding and in beauty and in design.

But if one can embrace neither the engineered functionalist, nor the deformist, response to the dysfunctional modern/post modern dynamic, then it at least seems encumbent upon one to view the other as an enemy worthy of respect, and to set about understanding that enemy's strengths and weaknesses, and, in turn, to begin acting with the intent of defeating the opponent through exploitation of its weaknesses.

To distill and reiterate, because I think it crucial, to successfully oppose, and certainly to successfully defeat, or transcend something, one must open up to and understand it, and give it the respect it deserves, while finding its weaknesses.

I doubt many are fight fans here at DA, but boxing is a perfect metaphor for the struggle between the modern and the post modern, even today as engineered functionalism (Piano) and deformism (Gehry) start to eclipse both.

Modernism is the puncher.

Post Modernism is the counter puncher.

The modern is an assertion that reason and order, shorn of the superficial in the legacy, are the true path to action.

The post modern is a rebellion against the tyranny of reason and order.

The modern is the parent. The post modern is the child.

In tarot cards, the modern is The Magician.

In tarot cards, the post modern is The Fool, or The Joker.

Of course, the deck exists largely in service of The Joker, which is the new born. The newborn and its evolutionary phases are what the deck is all about. It is a mythology of human development, at least in one aspect of the tarot deck.

(Note: I am not into the fortune telling aspects of the Tarot deck, only the archetypal/mythological aspects of it.)

Wow, some of you have too muc...
Wow, some of you have too much time on your hands. The beauty of design is some like it and some do not. One should always buy "what they like".

OK, I stand corrected???
OK, I stand corrected???

This chair
Took zero thought to "design".

philippe starck

is the charles eames of our generation.... like it or not.

fastfwd...
Plastic tubing fits into my argument even better. Thanks for pointing that out.

Where I erred egregiously is in reference to the arms. From a side view, which I lazily did not take the time to look up, there is clearly enough room for the arms to rest. Of course, resting them on hard round tubing--plastic, or polycarbonate, would be about as comfortable and pleasant, as resting them on a rifle barrel.

The rest of my case stands.

Regarding you pointing out that moderns committed the design sin of making uncomfortable seating, I could not agree with you more and I scold many of the moderns for making stupidly uncomfortable chairs. But again, if one is to escape the stupidity of the post modern, one surely ought to hold it to the same standards of criticism that one holds the modern. I think designing uncomfortable chairs is the height of stupidity, whether modern, or post modern.

So this part of my case stands also.

Finally, regarding your asking is wrong with designing chairs for persons that want chairs that are amusing to look at and uncomfortable to sit in, there is of course nothing wrong at all with doing so. There is only something wrong with calling it good design.

I like nose glasses very much when I am at a party, and have had a few. They are tasteless and base, but I cannot help being amused by them, even when others have noses too high to indulge me. But I can assure you that I would never consider nose glasses an exceptional design, even the ones that work the best.

Starck's design above is the chair equivalent of nose glasses. Nothing more. If taste making hustlers were willing to leave it at that, there would be no reason to comment. But they won't, so I have commented.

just to be a pedant,
I'll point out, re. the following

"In an epic couplet in poetry a poet is trying to jam in as many allusions as possible into two lines."

that there's no such thing as an "epic couplet."

Couplets, usually, rhyme. Allusions not required.

Now, I agree with you, dcwilson, that the chair sucks as a chair (& its purported wittiness fails to compensate).

But let me strongly urge brevity upon you.

One of the dangers of pontification is that people get bored; another is they get irritated and look closely to see if you know what you're talking about. Which, in the case of couplets, you don't.

Seems like it's time to move...
Seems like it's time to move on to something else. This thread has outlived its usefulness !!!

there is no other designer......

beside starck of this generation that has had as much impact and notoriety in this era as charles eames did in his.....

thats what i meant and y'all know it is true.

did i mean they share the same philosophies ? did i mean their work is similar ? did i mean they both ate fruity pebbles for breakfast ?

of course i didn't, the meaning is that starck is the only designer of this generation that has left a big mark on the design world.

whether you like him is irrelevant.

in 50 years we'll all be scouring eBay looking for "Starck Era" items ?

precisely !

but it will be more fun in thrift-stores (if they still have them) and when you find an actual starck piece you will have struck gold and dance a little jig.......

a consolation prize will be a karim rashid piece.... similar to finding a burke knock-off saarinen piece today.

cali4sun..,
"The beauty of design is some like it and some do not."

I always thought the beauty of design was an intention of design, one of its objectives, if you will, a part of its goal to create a functional product that is re-producible in small, or large runs for sale for sufficient profit to recover the investment, plus make some profit.

But now you have raised the notion that the act of design itself, and not the things designed, have beauty. I kind of agree.

But then you specify the beauty of the act of design not laying in how it is done, but in some liking the resultant product and some not.

Perhaps you meant that the beauty of freedom is that it lets some like a product and others not; this logic I could agree with.

Regardless, I know that if I were a designer, I would not find beauty in some liking what I do and some disliking it, unless I were perhaps a Zen master. I would seek to find, and make manifest, beauty in the solution and in the composition of materials, forms, textures, and colors that elegantly achieve an effective function that can be reproduced.

VinnyV
Thanks for the correction. Epic similie.

Read Spenser, Milton, even Pope. But Milton was the acknowledged master of this literary device.

And, according to my long ago Milton professor, Milton and Pope later turned an Epic couplet, and epic similie in couplet form a number of times.

Terminology clarified.

Analogy stands.

.
I'm not sure you really know that much about the design industry DC, or technology. If you did you'd know that Kartell is renowned for producing plastic furniture and lab equipment. The chair is polycarbonate not steel tubing and given that I'm sure you aren't a plastics engineer you'd have no knoweldge of what sort of stress testing and modelling was undertaken prior to prototype or production, perhaps it isn't in production or has integral gussets that we just can't see.

Kartell have a reputation to protect and aren't going to fling something dangerous into the market.

I'm far more appreciative of a gut, emotional reaction to work of this sort, it is at least honest. The afficionados who express a quick opinion like that may be far more experienced and knowledable than you imagine.

Keep reading, start collecting or design something, it will help your analysis immensely.

Point is
It's a bad comparison.

whatever.......

i still maintain philippe starck is the only designer of this generation that has made a lasting impact, used pioneering materials and has an instantly recognizable style.

y'all don't have to agree with me, i'm not going to post on this any further.

I have to agree...
that the chair looks better in profile...albeit a BUTTERFACE,

there WILL be a market for Starck pieces in the future although PROBABLY not "Starck-Era" query worthy,

and I'll draw the analogy that Starck is Christina as Rashid is BRITNEY!

I didn't say never
the ghost chair is one of his truly good pieces. As is the Hudson chair.

And secondly Chewie - Starck *himself* says that his things are not very good. That's his opinion, not mine.

Your argument about design being subjective is bogus and unbefitting a first year art/design student. People will always like bad things. That doesn't make those things good.

I'm not talking about styles or philosophies - I'm taking about the kind of radical shifts of perspectives that occur throughout history: Palladio changed how we think about space; Gutenberg changed how we distribute information; Michelangelo changed how we view the human body; Freud changed how we think about sex; Eames changed how we think about design; Apple changed how we think about music.

Stark is to Eames what Zune is to iPod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnSoEJ7taio

Almost all of Starck's design...
Almost all of Starck's designs in the last 10-15 years or so have been about "putting a twist" on existing icons, that's pretty much all he does now and I also notice that the design credit on his recent designs is usually shared by someone else. The creative part of this guy's brain is emptier than the most neglected well on earth! He's just not able to come up with original designs anymore. He is not that relevant in today's design scene IMO.

Now that Stark's been beaten into the ground...
how do we feel these "Lasir" chairs stack up? Aesthetically, I mean.
http://www.laisr.com/

I was away from my computer for a while
Usually I am not jumping of joy when Philippe Starck is the subject of a discussion on design. Not that there is nothing to learn from the man that put France back on the design map, but his talent is not as much in design as in finding innovative ways of keeping the media's attention. To get the media's attention one or two times is no art but to get it all the time certainly is. In doing so he has turned the page on a design world that was not only introvert and media shy but also most comfortable in avoiding the real confrontation with a media dominated market. The Eames generation, if that means something, did not avoid visibility, but it showed great restraint. When Raymond Loewy overstepped the generally accepted line of strict professional behaviour it was widely criticized by his designer colleagues, and yet he only promoted his products and the talent behind it. Starck went the opposite way and made his media presence more important than his production or his talent and in doing so he certainly showed his colleague designers that the world had changed.
At the very height of the Eames period well designed furniture reached a modest 8% of the North American furniture market. In 2009, and in spite of all the media attention, we are still in the same percentage of public acceptance and Starck is only a small part of that. To me that indicate that it is not all that relevant to discuss to what extend he might be, or not be, the designer of his generation.
I would also like to correct some mythology. Poly-Carbonate or PC is not as new as most people seem to think when talking about the "Ghost" chair. When the ghost chair was designed, much larger P.C. pieces had already been made and to mould a chair in one piece was neither new for Kartell nor for many other chair manufacturers in the world. Starck could count on two decades of Kartell experience with similar products.
DCWilson raises the point of "where is the Ray in Starck's world"? Although a first reaction might be that it is not a pre-requisite to have a "Ray" I think that it is indeed an important question. Throughout art history, rivalry, in one way or another, from friendly to highly hostile, has always been important. In some cases (Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck) a trio made the rivalry even more productive. I agree, Starck would have made more waves, would have reached even higher showmanship if he had been challenged on his own grounds. Unfortunately he is not

YO
I need those glasses. Pronto.