2005 / Armless chairs

2007 / Lounge chairs 2006 / Arm chairs

In Japanese Aesthetics details are well defined because they houses the whole.
I tried in my chair to make a simple structure showing some constructive details, for example, the elliptical section of the “bones” which are connecting the frames and the back legs. I like the simplicity and the delicate vagueness of japanese aesthetics: the surface of back and seat is transparent but you can’t see really through.

Alberto Meda

The aspects of the Japanese aesthetic that I have tried on this occasion to focus on are the spiritual qualities, the sensibility and the attentiveness that are present within me as a Japanese individual, as well as the sense of identity that emerges through the way in which these attributes are actually revealed.
We sense the Japanese aesthetic in the way in which consideration and attentiveness are present to an astonishing degree while, on the surface, an expression of utter simplicity is maintained.
In contrast to the simplicity and profundity of appearance, there is at the same time an extraordinary degree of robustness and attentiveness to the needs of others. My aim in creating this chair was to realize a degree of comfort that could never be imagined from a mere glance at the simple external shape and a sense of happy surprise generated by actually touching the chair.
On the surface this chair is extremely thin. It looks very hard, as if it were made of plastic laminated molded plywood. But soft cushions are placed on the seat and in the back area, thus making the seat very comfortable and ensuring that it remains comfortable for extended periods of sitting. The spirit of attentiveness to people’s needs is not manifest solely in visual terms: I have aimed at a design that achieves completion through the actual experience of the physical object.
My intention has been to concentrate in the form of a chair the surprise and joy to be obtained from experiencing the gap between visual impression and functional comfort.

AZUMI/Shin Azumi&Tomoko Azumi

Details makes the whole chair, whole chair is made of details. Wooden sticksused in structure creates logical and harmonious combination. Every stick supports the structure itself. You get touched some of them when sitting while all of them looks after the act. Wooden plane as a seating element is needed for convenient seating. It raises from the structure by the edges creating more air and lightness to the whole.

Harri Koskinen

If there is any Japanese aesthetic in the chair it is a result of all the things I have seen in Japan. As everything we design is influenced by what we have seen it means that everything I design has a Japanese content, especially as I have been looking at things in Japan a lot recently. Mr. Kurokawa's text "8 manifestations of the Japanese aesthetic" was of great interest to me, revealing the complexity of thought given in Japan to the subject of an objects beauty. We in the west are poorly equiped for this evaluation and very little discussion takes place beyond a first reaction to an objects appearance. "It's beautiful" or "It's very ugly" might be Level 1 of object appraisal in Europe, followed by " It's beautiful, I really like the shape and the way the materials are combined" might be Level 2, but Level 3 is very rare and we might look strangely at someone who analyses an object in more depth that this. I guess in Japan you do not stand around discussing the 8 manifestations very often, but nevetheless, the fact that they exist It shows a more profound understanding of aesthetics than we have in the west. In the end the chair is Japanese because it is made in Japan, because the thinking behind it originated in Japan and because it was developed with a Japanese company and Japanese engineers. I cannot say that it was influenced by an old wooden bridge near Hiroshima, but I can say there are Japanese influences which helped to shape it.

Jasper Morrison

The clarity of vertical and horizontal; beauty present within things of no significance: one of the main features of Japanese design is the clear interconnection of vertical and horizontal. The Japanese aesthetic is present in design that achieves fullness by virtue of its simplicity. Tools entrusted with feelings and thoughts inherited from the past also seem to be imbued with the profound aesthetic awareness unique to the Japanese people.
The Japanese aesthetic and the archetypal image of Japan as they exist for me are present in my memory. Tracing this memory back, I return to the sensation of wood that I experienced when I was a child.
I still remember today after so many years the sensation of touching the planking of the open verandah of a dilapidated temple, the warped, rounded panels with their surfaces worn away with the years, and the gaps between the panels. Chairs are manifestations not just of the visual aesthetic: the tensile sensation is also an important aspect of their aesthetic.
Chairs are tools for everyday life that one should be able to use for many years with a sense of love and attachment, and I have therefore taken great care with the materials, making use of the feel and texture of pure and unadulterated oak.

Kanji Ueki

There’s nothing I’m particularly conscious of, but I’m aware that my work is sometimes thought of by people from other countries as being distinctively Japanese. It seems to me that there is probably a different awareness of form and shape at play here.

Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA

“How do your chairs express a message issuing from the Japanese aesthetic?”
The clash between Western and Japanese cultures:
These are chairs created in the image of the space that comes into being through the intertwining of pure concoctions that pass through space and plywood materials formed by the human body. They are based on the image of daydreams in the sense that they are a transference of the Japanese aesthetic to the vastness represented by chairs created in the West. The seat and the back of the chair are actually made of plywood, but the image I had in mind when I created it was that of a wholly imaginary structure using a material such as polycarbonate to produce an organic form as if the skin of the buttocks and the back had been peeled away. This was the image that caught up in my fantasies, but I decided to entrust it to a future form based on a development of this idea. This was largely because I was unable to make out the balance between the investment and the quantity that would actually be produced. As a Japanese, it seemed to me that my message for the Japanese aesthetic was that designing chairs for me involves depicting the clash between, on the one hand, Western culture as it exists within me and, on the other hand, the Japanese aesthetic which is present in the deep layers of my consciousness. I feel that, for Japanese people, whose history has had no place for chairs, this theme is synonymous with the very path of creation, with its never-ending tribulations.

Masayuki Kurokawa

Curiosity, fun and simplicity are the characteristics which Japanese culture has always inspired in me and that I would always like to integrate in my work.
I hope that I have done just that in the chair called "Qui e La", which I have designed for Maruni.

Michele De Lucchi

Japanese people have traditionally had a deep love for the beauty that reveals itself through an almost obsessive concern with tools. Design is usually thought of in terms of decoration and ornamentation, but we are now returning to the concept of design based on functional beauty to which Japanese culture has traditionally aspired. It seems to me that the appropriate position (form) under the conditions in which this concept exists and an approach concerned to explore to the ultimate limit this sense of appropriateness stand at the basis of the Japanese aesthetic. I designed this chair while thinking about the iconic form of the chair that we all conjure up in our minds. Perhaps one might describe it as a “chair-like chair”. I felt that I wanted to be concerned first and foremost with the “essence” of the chair. It seems to me also that the idea of simplicity and naturalness is an important aspect of the Japanese aesthetic. My design was based on my feeling that this idea, which contains within it the notion that the user should continue to feel attached to the object no matter how dirty, damaged and frayed at the edges it may have become in the course of years of use, is the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper on which the future history of the item will be written. I wanted this chair to become an object that would continue to exist for a long time in an unprepossessing and effortless manner. I feel that this is the essence of the Japanese aesthetic.

Naoto Fukasawa

I have always admired the emphasis put on social harmony in Japanese society. There is something uniquely noble about people sacrificing their personal gratification over the good of many. With JOIN, I wanted to express this feeling of consideration and mutual harmony by connecting legs and the back in to a single continuous part. The result is a chair that visually represents unity, harmony, and coexistence apparent in Japanese aesthetics.

Sean Yoo

The Japanese aesthetic has continued to focus on tranquility and to search for beauty in simplicity. Nature is considered to be the measure of all things: minute changes are carefully noted and the flow of nature has provided the lifeblood for the Japanese aesthetic.
Seen in Buddhist terms, the Japanese house has been considered as no more than a temporary dwelling-place for our physical beings. Life is a transitory phenomenon and human beings are no more than temporary visitors who have been born and who live out their lives in this world, eventually to disappear and return to their former states.
With the idea that the home can exist as no more than an area surrounded by bound grasses, when the grass knots are undone, the object will revert to its original wild and untamed state. Everything is born under this vision.
In the case of this chair, I focused on the wooden planks and the expressions that arise from within them. Wood is beautiful in a many different ways, and the beauty of cross grain is particularly outstanding. I simplified the form in order to emphasize this beauty and made use of steel pipes for the legs.

Shigeru Uchida

I tried to express the beauty that is only achievable with wood, taking a minimalist approach. The texture of wood; warmth, softness and hardness, scent, and lightness... are realized with different processing techniques such as yosegi(mosaic woodwork), mageki(bentwood) and kumiki(assembling wood without clasps). This reflects why this chair?s details are also very minimal. I believe this piece embodies the Japanese aesthetics in multiple perspectives.

Tamotsu Yagi