Philippe Starck on Design and Politics

The French designer wants big changes in his field and has joined mydeco, a Web site that aims to democratize interior decoration

Philippe Starck, one of the world's best-known contemporary designers, has created interiors for luxury hotels, restaurants, condos, and weekend homes. Objects he has designed include plastic Louis Ghost chairs, AK-47 gun lamps, and a whole host of everyday items, such as a spider-like chrome juice squeezer for Alessi, noodles for Panzani, mineral-water bottles, toothbrushes, luggage, a motorcycle, a mega-yacht, and a new euro coin in honor of France's presidency of the European Union.

Starck, who revels in being provocative, recently has taken on the role of creative adviser to mydeco, a London startup that aims to "democratize" interior design. The French designer also wants to democratize ecology, with his new design for a $600 personal windmill that's supposed to generate 20% to 60% of the energy needed to power a home.

Sporting a white T-shirt, blue, yellow and red patterned pants, and a sunburn, Starck recently met with BusinessWeek's Jennifer L. Schenker at his offices near the Bastille in Paris to discuss the future of design, his new line of eco-friendly objects, and mydeco.

In a March interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, you said that everything you designed was unnecessary and that you regret what you have created. Did you really mean that?

This was taken out of context. It is more complex. Design is not very important today. In periods of peace, luxury, and quiet, you can have some interest in the aesthetic side of design. But in other periods, like ours, where you have extraordinary violent challenges—whether religious, political, ecological or economic—it is not appropriate. Today design must be political or shouldn't exist. Everything has its time. In the '80s it was O.K. to do a nice lamp; it is not the time anymore. If I did it today, I would regret it.

So what is the political vision behind your designs?

I mean to give the best to a maximum of people, to raise the quality and lower the price. Today, we can consider that done. Take the chairs I designed 20 years ago. The perimeters of quality have expanded a lot, and the price has been divided by 100. When you divide the price by 100, you have radically changed the concept. That's democratic design, and it's an example of my political consciousness. That fight is almost over, and others can finish it.

Two months ago we announced the new concept—the new war—which is called democratic ecology. It is the same process of building affordable products, high-technology products that are easy to understand, so that everybody can not only save energy but also produce energy.

How does mydeco fit in with your philosophy?

It is the ultimate side of my democratic work. I am not involved with mydeco to have an Internet outlet to sell more of my chairs. I'm not interested. We sell enough of them already. What interests me is several aspects of mydeco that are very original, totally new, and that can provide a real service to improve the quality of life of people.

Please explain.

Mydeco will do to the home what Napster did to music. Napster revolutionized the music market: how to find it, how to load it, even how to steal it. It put into question all the majors; it put into question the production of music. It was an atomic bomb that revolutionized everything. Mydeco is going to be the same for many reasons.

To draw a parallel with the music industry, all the young creators were complaining about the dictatorships of the major music labels, saying "I can't have access to creation because they are the ones who choose everything. Everything is locked up. There is no freedom."

Today we are almost in the same situation for furniture. You have major furniture corporations and stars like me.