At every turn, Van Duysen notes, the ethos of Molteni prevails. “It’s rich in emotions, in beauty. We want to create things that inspire,” he says. “This is an industry where you can still feel humanity. The store should trigger curiosity.” At 9 Via Manzoni; molteni.it —Sam Cochran
One to Watch: Artist Ara Starck’s immersive creations deliver dashes of wonder at an architectural scale
“Metz was once the heart of stained glass,” says artist Ara Starck, speaking of the city in northeast France. There’s its famous cathedral (also known as the Lantern of God) with windows by artists like Marc Chagall and Jacques Villon, as well as Église Saint-Maximin, with more by Jean Cocteau. Now, Starck has added her own vitreous touch to that urban landscape, designing 27 stained-glass panels (nearly every window) for Maison Heler, a hotel conceptualized by her father, industrial designer Philippe Starck, opening this March.
The project marks the latest in a series of collaborations between dad and daughter, who share a flair for the dramatic. In 2008, she conceived a 1,560-square-foot canvas for the ceiling of a restaurant at Le Meurice hotel in Paris. In 2022, she created a massive curtain for the redesign of Madrid’s Teatro Eslava. And last year she unveiled a nearly 10,000-square-foot ceiling mural for LA Almazara, an olive oil museum in Ronda, Spain. “The idea is always to position the viewer at the center of the art piece,” she explains of her architecturally scaled installations.
Starck started painting around the age of six, receiving lessons from the French fine artist Gérard Garouste. Today, though her work still begins with brushstrokes, she thrills at adapting her constructivist, vaguely figurative imagery into a range of mediums, often teaming up with master artisans. “With their savoir faire we try to translate—or even to transcend—the painting into what I call the third matter,” she explains. In the case of Maison Heler, that involved close collaboration with Metz’s esteemed stained-glass experts. Elsewhere, she has created supersized carpets and friezes. She’s currently researching immersive approaches to ceramics.
