A boundary-pusher, the enfant terrible of the design world; Philippe Starck is a designer who defies categorisation. However, each of his 10,000+ projects captures a sense of joviality and an inherent passion for design that defines the man. Be it independent projects or collaborations with brands, The Starck aesthetic is one of minimalism and a democratic approach coupled with an irreverence that borders on humour. At almost 75, he continues to challenge design norms, as evident from his latest collaboration with interior design brand Kartell for Milan Design Week 2024. A collaboration that began 25 years ago with the La Marie chair, a transparent design, the precursor to his iconic Ghost chair.

This year, the brand’s display at Salone del Mobile.Milano, titled Urban Horizons, asked visitors to reflect on the evolution of Milan as an epicentre for design and creativity, playing on the idea of innovation that is part of the Kartell ideology. Of Starck’s designs for the brand, the HHH (Her Highest Highness) chair, the Cara armchairs, and lighting designs were on display.

Kartell also launched two new series with Starck at this year’s design fair; a collaboration with Mattel’s Barbie to commemorate 65 years of the iconic doll which reimagined five of Kartell’s chairs into a human-sized series and a more collectible doll-sized version for Barbies to adorn their dream houses; and the continuation of the AI furniture series by the French designer, AI Family. This year for the AI collection, Starck designed a console with the help of artificial intelligence that was produced using illy Iperespresso capsules, reflecting both Kartell’s and illy’s commitment to sustainable design. Both series attest to Starck’s aesthetic while pushing it forward.

Speaking with STIR at Fiera Milano, about the essence of his design practice highlighted in the collaboration with Mattel, Starck shared, “Without humour, you cannot exist. You can make an intelligent product but without a drop of humour or poetry, there is no link between materiality and us. Humour is everywhere, you either have to discover it or create it.”

This touch of humour and whimsy is perhaps exemplified by the collection of Barbie Pink (PMS 219) chairs debuted by Kartell this year. These include the A.I., Venice, Louis Ghost, Masters, and Ero/s designs recreated in recycled plastic, according to the interior design brand. The collaboration seems to stem from Mattel’s marketing campaign that reimagines the classic doll while selling new merchandise—that began with the release of the Barbie movie last year, offering an escapist world of pure Barbiecore to its consumers. And what could be better suited for the collection than the Ghost chair, Starck’s iconic design in polycarbonate and one of the most sold chairs in the world, in Barbie pink of course, that seems like it has always been part of Barbie’s possessions.

The Mattel collaboration also included Starck's first-ever chair designed using a prototype generative design software developed by Autodesk. Launched in 2019, it took two years to complete. On the design, Starck noted in an exclusive interview with STIR that for humans to evolve, we must work with AI and all the services it can provide us. It would lead, as he understood, to more intelligent design. “I think AI is the only tool that can rebalance the world,” he noted in the interview.

If then, he was convinced that the designer of today would disappear but instead become a coach for AI tools, it is interesting to note how the new designs for Kartell still bear a mark of Starck’s design language—sleek, smart, and utterly functional. While the pieces are made sustainably with as little material and energy as possible, they embody not only the quintessential “Kartell spirit” of innovation and aesthetics, but their minimalistic design speaks to Starck’s design sensibilities. So, even though only human hands do not typically design them, they betray humanness to them. This showcases apparently Starck’s apprehension about AI and its capacity for intuition, as he would later note.

On display alongside the original AI chair, designed five years ago, was an A.I. LOUNGE design, a new chair design AI ORI that draws on the folding techniques of origami, and the illy AI Console. Each plays off the distinct language of the other coming together cohesively, a perfect combination of functionality and aesthetics.

While AI seems to have evolved far more than when Starck first began to work with it, it still cannot generate a creative spark, as he says. It has not yet gained a humour. And yet, it is getting more powerful by the day. Today AI can help generate designs customised for specific needs. It can be created in the blink of an eye, thus reducing the workload of already overworked designers. It can even replicate the signature looks of designers, such as Zaha Hadid’s parametric forms. As more and more designers engage with generative design, it is perhaps time to consider how we use it. If we give it full autonomy or as Starck mentioned, become coaches while mining its intelligence. The question then remains how we mine its intelligence, and to what end. If AI will catch up to our abilities soon, we must be able to train it well.

To end, Starck talks about how human intelligence ought to use AI, “Human intelligence will work easily with AI because we have created this incredibly powerful tool. Today, this machine is one million times more intelligent than us. But it still does not have the spark of craziness to create something. That’s why [the designer’s] job is to have the spark, the idea, the intuition and say to AI: help me, please. And it will do it very well.” After all, as he would go on to say, AI is not human, yet.