Great French Designer Shifts His Focus to Bali - Jakarta Globe

Great French Designer Shifts His Focus to Bali

By Katrin Figge

The Stairs Villa Hotel in Seminyak is set to open next year. (Photo courtesy of The Stairs Villa Hotel)

Philippe Starck ranks as one of the most famous product and interior designers in the world.

Yet the Frenchman is also known for his consumer goods and architectural creations around the world, including the Peninsula Hotel restaurant in Hong Kong, the Teatron in Mexico, the Hotel Delano in Miami and the Mondrian in Los Angeles.

For his latest labor of love the 64-year-old went to Bali, where he designed The Stairs Villa Hotel, in the ever-popular Petitenget neighborhood of Seminyak.

The project, initiated by French development and management firm DeCiazini Group and spearheaded by cofounders Nicolas Panzani, Noel Ciabrini and Hugo Revuelta along with Starck, broke ground earlier this year and is scheduled for completion in 2014.

The luxurious Stairs Villa Hotel — taking its name from the monolithic 20-meter-wide stairway on the property — is the first development in Indonesia to be fully designed by Starck. It consists of 12 villas as well as public areas that include a patisserie, a restaurant, a bar, a boutique, a library and spa and workout facilities.

Starck told the Jakarta Globe about his vision for the Stairs, his motivation in becoming part of the project and his special connection to Bali.

World-renowned designer Philippe Starck. (Photo courtesy of The Stairs Villa Hotel)

How did the collaboration with Panzani, Ciabrini and Revuelta come about?

Perhaps because of a rigorous life, I am in the comfortable position to choose my clients and partners. My parameters are very simple: first, we do not work for weapon, hard alcohol, tobacco or oil companies … and anything that may come from strange money.

My other parameter is to understand if the developer works for himself, in sometimes a cynical way, or if he wishes to bring a better life to his society.

That is the most important parameter. The third is if I can have a 'sentimental affair' with these partners, if we can fall enough in love to have a beautiful story together — to have beautiful children, which is the project.

When I met Nicholas, Noel and Hugo — vibrant people who arrived with energy, enthusiasm and honesty — I was immediately convinced they will be the ideal partners to bring a new vision into the tourism [industry], especially in Bali.

Where did you find the inspiration to create Stairs?

Bali is a continuum between a respectful and a modern beginning.

I spent a lot of time in very small, lost Balinese villages, and these villages were very interesting as they are an intimate mix of daily human life [in the] countryside with all the richness of human relations, and the monumental scales of the ever-present temples.

In the Occident [Western world], these two scales are separated: you have the streets and monuments. In Bali, all is deeply mixed in a very natural and sophisticated cocktail. It is what I have tried to translate into this project.

What is the concept behind the villas?

The Stairs has in the public spaces a monumental ambition that [aims to make] people higher smarter, more creative, more lively, more in love. The Stairs are stairs like a theater stage; everything is magic, everything is surprising, but everything is human.

The magic also comes from the paradoxical mix of materials: poor and rich, concrete and refined wood, but it is always honest, it is always the truth; there is no fake, no decoration, just simple needs at their best.

The Stairs without doubt shall become a boiling bucket of energy, creativity and intelligence of Bali, and perhaps more.

Could you tell us more about the interior design of the villas?

Like always in my work, it is not about architecture or decoration but more about an angle of view and perhaps a philosophy. The Stairs shall be a place for intelligent, creative, sensitive, open people who have an idea of quality and truth.

The result is a place different from anywhere, a mix of emotional art and human scale, of rough-cast concrete and the finest contemporary local and international design. It is a place where Balinese style plays with the [19]40s, the '60s, the '70s, today and the most futuristic pieces of design. Colors come directly from Bali with its magic mix of earthy colors and fluoro [fluorescent] colors.

Stairs is called an 'urban village.' How so?

The Stairs Villa Hotel in Seminyak is set to open next year. (Photo courtesy of The Stairs Villa Hotel)

The village of villas is really a village with narrow streets, intimate, a little mysterious. I have interpreted the iconic local architecture in a monolithic cast concrete piece of art.

The icon is reinforced by the schematic. If the villas are charming, comfortable, deeply human, with some nice beautiful surprises, they are also a cross, the confrontation of past, present and future, local and international art.

Some people will be surprised to see an evocation of a typical Balinese house covered by street graffiti, engraved in stone, in glass, filled with silver or even gold. To make Balinese traditional artists work together with the new generation of Balinese street artists is explosive and fertile.

The Stairs does not follow any type of trend in decoration and architecture; it is self-designed, just following the beauty of the Balinese soul and the future of the next center of the world.

What is your connection to Bali?

Bali is very sentimental to me. I stayed in Bali during my very hard and long trip around the world when I was 23. It was not very easy; it was a very deep experience, with myself and with the world.

Some countries were harder than others, but Bali appeared to me like a paradise. An Eden where you can find culture, quality, respect, talent, honesty with the most divine people I ever met.

People who know the values of life, people who respect other people, people who clearly think that good is better than bad. Time has passed, and Bali is perhaps not exactly like I saw it at that time, but for me, [the] Balinese are still the most human people I ever met. It is enough reason to make a project in Bali.

A country is not a landscape, a country is the addition of all the souls of its inhabitants. The last time I came to Bali, I was so pleased to feel the same respect, excitement, respect and connection.

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