Posted 5 years ago
austrohung…
(584 items)
I have never been a big fan of Philippe Starck, but there are some of his designs I quite like, and that's the case of the JOE CACTUS ashtray. I love its simplicity, and the fact that he chose bakelite as the material to make it in... in 1990! (and especially I love he chosed the typical bakelite red, although the cactus is green, -a weird shade of it-) and I love the way he abstracts a cactus into a single thick sting...
It also is quite clever the way he solves the problem of hiding the cigarette ends by just pulling up the cactuslike part of it, which is narrower under the surface line and thus the hole is wider and the cigarette ends fall into the "pot". It's one of those simple and clever designs I always like!
It's funny how one of my arguments for not liking Starck as a designer is that the very same shapes cannot be used for everything and that was Starck's trick, and thus his designs were almost never valid... but I just discovered the toilet brushes he designed in 1993 (pic 3) which virtually show the same design (at least on the outside) and seems to work really well for its purpose ;)
Joe Cactus was produced by OWO in France and Officina Alessi in Italy. As i said it was made in bakelite and it stands 20 cm high and is 10.5 cm wide.
Hi Alex, how's things?
This is a great design as you say, and I am entranced by the bakelite use. Nothing else is quite like it for look and feel, and this must be a delight to have!
Thanks Racer!
I think I should have taken a pic of its bottom because it really has the same feeling of an old bakelite item... it's one of the things I liked the most when i first had it in my hands! Rght after getting it I bought a Spanish bakelite ashtray from the 1940s and they really have the same feeling :)
And thanks Brunswick, ho2cultcha, AnythingObscure, Ben, EZa, fortapache, vetraio50, keramikos for your loves!