Japanese Design

It can be argued that Japan contains a higher number of internationally significant architects and designers relative to its geographic size than anywhere else in the world. Japanese designers regularly implement radical experiments in new materials and building systems that successfully address imminent energy and resource challenges. These technological achievements are combined with an acute awareness of the ephemerality of existence, creating a rich dialogue between the concrete and the abstract.

Yamamoto is one of the most common Japanese surnames and means ‘foot of the mountain'. It seems that with each collection he designs Yohji Yamamoto climbs from the foot of the mountain to its summit, lingers there for a moment, and immediately returns to the starting point. He has been doing this six times a year for about four decades, each time in a different way. Constant dynamism typifies his work, not only in terms of movement but also in terms of change. This is not only a way of working, but also a way of life, and a worldview.

Kohei Sugiura, Graphic Designer and Professor Emeritus at Kobe Design University, Japan, is a revolutionary innovator in all aspects of graphic design, with a core focus on book design, typography and information design, He has created an inexhaustible wealth of design work – which has influenced a whole generation of leading designers all over Asia. The work of Prof Sugiura spans the entire field of graphic design: from magazines and books to posters and postage stamps, and from exhibitions to environmental graphics. He has been honoured internationally with numerous prestigious awards. Prof Sugiura’s extensive writings about perception, visual communication, music and iconography with a special focus on the cultural traditions of Asia constitute an invaluable body of profound design thinking.

A selection of Prof Sugiura’s book and magazine design works, along with an essay on his graphic design methodology and philosophy are presented in this publication.

Kenya Hara opens his book "Designing Design", published in 2007 by Lars Müller Publishers, with the words: "Verbalizing design is another act of design".
Words have to be realized in a medium in order to exist. They can be spoken and they can be written, but they must be designed, accorded presence that can be perceived with the senses and interpreted by anyone according to his or her worldview.

research into the use of the Tokonoma in the home. The Tokonoma is a part of the ho,me in Japanese cutlure where there wiould bhe a dispolay of nIkebana, Boinsaim small artifact , a place to burn insence, a shrine , a place where you would remember your ancestors. Today, in homes throughout the world, this interested in Japanese rt can create a small display section in which to display a scroll and an accent which could be a vase, ikebana or Bonsai. There are some rules but, generally, it is created to please the eye.

A new book by Naohiro Matsumura is reviewed. Shikake are described as designs that 'open up' knew options to people and that positively allow them to freely choose those options. By providing numerous examples and illustrations, Matsumura explores the motivations, philosophy and implementations of Shikake in the real world. Aimed at the general reader, this book is approachable to numerous individuals, ranging from the general interest reader who wishes to understand nudging from a traditional ranging from the history of Japanese design, as well as the specialist designer who wishes to employ nudging techniques in a positive and fair manner.

The network of Japanese designers who trained abroad in the inter-war period significantly shaped the phenomenon of Japanese Modernism—a phenomenon still to be thoroughly explored in the context of Modernism studies. This article offers a new perspective focusing on the mutual nature of transnational exchanges rather than the mono local context or the one way ‘influence’ of the Bauhaus and Constructivism on Japan which has been studied in the past. My analysis of the Bauhaus network as a component of the larger network of 1930s Japanese modernity in architecture and design confirms that one cannot capture this transnational landscape properly unless one considers the hybrid and productive outcomes shared by a network of artists involved. The analysis presents a number of networks that interact and overlap, with particular attention to the network of women artists.

Epílogo del libro "La casa japonesa: espacio, memoria y lenguaje".

A finales del 2014 presenté a Fundación Japón una solicitud junto con la Editorial Reverté para la traducción del libro del Prof. Takeshi Nakagawa, titular del Laboratorio de Historia de la Arquitectura de la Escuela de Ciencia Creativa e Ingeniería de la Universidad de Waseda, donde realicé mis dos estancias de investigación. El profesor Nakagawa es catedrático en el Departamento de Arquitectura de la Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencia Creativa y desde 1994 ha desempeñado el puesto de Director General del Equipo de Gobierno de Japón para la salvaguardia de Angkor (JSA/ Japanese Government Team for Safeguarding Angkor). El libro del Prof. Nakagawa "The Japanese House: in space, memory and language" refiere de forma alarmante cómo ha sufrido la calidad de la vida en la transición entre lo tradicional y lo moderno en el ámbito de lo doméstico y, a pesar de estar centrado en el caso particular de Japón, es indudablemente aplicable como reflexión a nuestro mundo occidental. La propuesta de traducción fue presentada junto con la Editorial Reverté dentro del programa de subvenciones para Traducción y Publicación sobre Japón en octubre del 2014 y aprobada oficialmente en abril de 2015. El libro traducido fue editado en febrero de 2016. Aparte de realizar la traducción, fui invitada por parte de Editorial Reverté a redactar el epílogo de la edición española, siendo éste un capítulo de la tesis doctoral en curso. Así mismo, fui invitada a aportar fotografías propias para las ilustraciones por el autor del libro, el Prof. Takeshi Nakagawa.

Materiality not only influences the physical attributes of objects and environments, but also shapes experience. In design, each material decision is charged with meaning, and materials convey particular social, historical, and technological information. Sophisticated designers recognize that this embedded information can be used to elicit particular responses from a viewer, based on his or her prior set of experiences. The process of manipulating this material code for positive effect is a critical stage in the achievement of design innovation.

Whole cloth is planar and pliable; it can be given volume. One can animate cloth: drape, crumple, and fold it; compress, pleat, and tuck it: festoon, swag, and swaddle it; bunt it and cut it; tear, sew, and fur it; applique, quilt, and fabricate it. Cloth is ductile; ex expands and contracts. Cloth can be embellished with stitches, dyes, or print. Cloth can be burned or scored. It is for each generation to expand the vocabulary of approaches to cloth.

This book tells the story of critical avant-garde design in Japan, which emerged during the 1960s and continues to inspire designers today. The practice communicates a form of visual and material protest drawing on the ideologies and critical theories of the 1960s and 1970s, notably feminism, body politics, the politics of identity, and ecological, anti-consumerist and anti-institutional critiques, as well as the concept of otherness. It also presents an encounter between two seemingly contradictory concepts: luxury and the avant-garde. The book challenges the definition of design as the production of unnecessary decorative and conceptual objects, and the characterisation of Japanese design in particular as beautiful, sublime or a product of 'Japanese culture'. In doing so it reveals the ways in which material and visual culture serve to voice protest and formulate a social critique.

The most drastic period in the development of the Japanese domestic space is designated with the term wakonyousai (literally, Japanese-spirit/Western-style) and spans from late Edo to the early Meiji Period.

The implementation of western spatial structures, political and social doctrines, as well as new routines in everyday life, initiated with the Meiji restoration, becomes during the next years an ideological weapon to create a new “modern Japan”. In reference to the domestic space, the key of “modernization” lies in changing not only a set of household artifacts, but a whole system of behavior –a phenomenon called wayō setchū,– by merging two different forms of life, which leads to a multiplicity of spatial and corporeal practices, to a conceptual division of space, and to a split in the identity of the habitat (TEASLEY, 2001).

As part of the new system of objects to suddenly colonize the domestic space, the chair is the unquestionable protagonist. Its appearance induced, among others, a change in the corporal habits, in the visual plane of the user, in the sensory and emotional perception of the system of objects, and in the role furniture plays in the overall space configuration.       


El periodo más drástico en el desarrollo del espacio doméstico japonés es el designado con el término "wakonyousai" (literalmente, con corazón japonés/al estilo occidental) y abarca el final del período Edo y el principio del Meiji. Iniciada con la reforma de estado, la implementación de estructuras espaciales occidentales, doctrinas políticas y sociales, así como nuevas prácticas en la vida diaria, se convierte durante la era siguiente en un arma ideológica para crear un nuevo ?moderno Japón?. En lo doméstico, la clave de la ?modernización? reside en cambiar no simplemente un conjunto de artefactos, sino un sistema de comportamiento ?fenómeno denominado "way? setch?",? a través de fusionar dos formas de vida: hecho que conlleva a una multiplicidad de prácticas espaciales y corporales, a una división conceptual de los espacios, y a un desdoblamiento de la identidad del hábitat (TEASLEY, 2001). Dentro del nuevo sistema de objetos que colonizan el espacio doméstico de forma repentina, la protagonista indiscutible es la silla, cuya introducción desencadena, entre otros, un cambio en los hábitos corporales, en el plano visual del usuario, en la percepción sensitiva y afectiva del sistema de objetos, así como en el protagonismo del mueble en la configuración del espacio.

В а щ у к О. А., К а р п о в а Ю. И. Цветопластические метаморфозы и концепт пустоты в твор-
честве японских дизайнеров-графиков м. кацуи и к. Сато (1970-е  — 2000-е  годы) //  Вестн.
С.-Петерб. ун-та. Сер. 15. 2012. Вып. 1. С. 167–176.
В статье рассматриваются произведения японских дизайнеров-графиков Мицуо Кацуи и Койти Сато, в творчестве которых находят яркое воплощение традиционные эстетико-философские ориентиры японской проектной культуры. В центре внимания авторов лежат художественно-выразительные особенности плакатов М. Кацуи и К. Сато, цветопластические характеристики их образов, а также особый концепт пустоты, обладающий ценностным наполнением в контексте традиционных японских философско-культурных представлений.

Ikat is an ancient technique used to create patterned fabric by resist-dyeing the threads before weaving them. The word is a derivation of the Malayan world "Mengikat" which means "to bind, knot or wind round," and refers to the process of binding the warp and/or weft threads according t5o a predetermined pattern.

[[Mestyle Home and Living Magazine pp.130-133 March 2014]
กว่าหนึ่งทศวรรษที่ โตโยต้ายูนิเวอร์แซลดีไซน์
โชว์เคส ที่ประเทศญี่ปุ่น ได้เปิดให้ผู้เข้าชมนิทรรศการ
ได้รับความรู้ ความเข้าใจหลักการออกแบบสากล
ที่ประเทศสหรัฐอเมริกาเป็นต้นกำเนิดแนวคิด
เมื่อประมาณยี่สิบปีที่แล้ว

One axiom of Japan's mingei (folk art) aesthetic is that the power of tradition can be a source of inspiration and creative innovation. This sometimes overlooked opportunity is elegantly realized in the activities of the SOU SOU company and its relationshp with the tradition of shibori (shaped resist dyeing) in the towns of Arimatsu and Narumi, Japan...

Članek predstavlja uvod v predstavitev umetniškega gibanja Sōgetsu (1958–1971), njegovega mesta v zgodovini japonske avantgardne scene, pomembnosti umetniškega centra Sōgetsu (Sōgetsu Art Center ali SAC), kjer se je gibanje odvijalo, in njegovega mecena Sōfuja Teshigahare. Ob pregledu prvih obstoječih dokumentov o SAC-u, prvega, ki je služil kot uvodni vodič Centra (objavljen 1. septembra 1958), in drugega, ki je bil ekskluzivno izdan ob njegovem odprtju (13. septembra 1958), bomo lahko natančneje razkrili SAC-ovo podobo in kapacitete ter opredelili cilje, ki si jih je postavil pred začetkom delovanja. Kaj je Center nudil, da je bil razglašen za »sanjski grad vsakega umetnika«?

This article is an introduction to the Sōgetsu art movement (1958–1971): its importance in the history of the Japanese avant-garde, and the significance of the Sōgetsu Art Center (SAC) itself, including its patron Sōfu Teshigahara. By examining the first two printed materials on SAC, the first of which served as an introductory guide to the Center (published on September 1st, 1958), and the second printed exclusively for the Center's opening (September 13th, 1958), we will consider the Center's appearance and facilities and point out its functions, which Teshigahara assigned from its begining. What were the Center's particular features by which it got called " the dream castle of every artist " ?

(Irving Penn regards the work of Issey Miyake. Photographs 1975–1998)

A cooperation between a photographer and a fashion designer does not sound surprising, unconventional or exotic to us nowadays, as fashion needs photography to be presented in magazines or catalogs, no matter whether in digital or analogue media. However the book that I am introducing today is a result of an intense exchange between two masters and at the same time of two cultures: the american photographer Irving Penn (1917–2009) and the almost twenty years younger Japanese fashion designer Miyake Issey (born 1938).

Read the full review on my website: www.mikan.de