Pilar Viladas Next to Enter ‘Design/Depression’ Conversation, Reminds Us About Philippe Starck

The NY Times‘ Pilar Viladas adds to the growing list of design writers talking about the original Murray Moss vs. Michael Cannell argument over “Design Loves/Hates a Depression” (we talked about the Guardian‘s Stephen Bayley entering the fray yesterday). Viladas makes some interesting points, talking about how the design-as-art movement was getting a tad absurd as we inched toward financial ruin, but going forward we shouldn’t judge things that are genuinely beautiful just because they might be expensive. She says design will need to get more streamlined and innovative to work within this new economic crunch, for sure, but that’s no reason to make general, sweeping negative remarks about the whole of design. What’s more, she brings up a connection we hadn’t yet made about how Philippe Starck has been saying all of this sort of “design is killing itself” since last summer (and, well, forever before that too):

Philippe Starck opined that nowadays, “to speak about the beauty of a chair or a lamp…seems a bit obscene…We must try to stop design for design’s sake.” Starck has been saying things like that for years, and still his designs, many of them looking suspiciously unnecessary to mankind’s survival, keep on coming.

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