INTERIORS
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Marc
Newson-designed "Embryo" chair |
For almost
30 years, Tokyo interior design house Idée has remained at the leading edge of furniture
fashion. Starting as an antique dealer specializing in art deco wares, Idée impresario
Terou Kurosaki moved in the 1980s to nurture innovative, up-and-coming designers, bringing
as yet unheard of names like Philippe Starck and Marc Newson into his emerging coterie of
cutting-edge interior artists. While Idée rapidly became a clearinghouse for a fresh, and
global, design perspective, Starck, Newson et. al. have gone on to reinvent the world of
furniture and accessory design.
Currently, the Idée design collective has expanded into new orbits with the release of
the Sputnik range. Described as a “new approach to an ideal and fulfilling way of
living,ESputnik will continue to provide a vehicle for the work of Newson, along
with a number of emerging and established local designers. Complementing the Idée line of
practical and stylish housewares, Sputnik will delve into a modular, futuristic furniture
formula, epitomized by Newson-designed items such as the “WickerElounge chair.
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| Idée' Aoyama
extrerior |
With two shops in
Aoyama and Shimouma-the former a citadel housing the numerous strains of Idée’s
eclectic vision-Idée retains an independent approach that values style and quality over
price and quantity. In an effort to promote the “truth in living and beauty,”
says Idée spokesperson Fumiko Ikeda, Idée is more than a furniture and housewares
retailer and simultaneously operates a flower shop, cafE an Asian Pacific taste
shop-Pacific-and an ethnic restaurant, Rojak. Additionally, Idee carries books, magazines
and CDs (mainly jazz and bossa nova) selected to complement the Idée lifestyle aesthetic.
Many of these elements are incorporated into the Cafe Idée, located on the third floor of
the Aoyama shop, which combines furniture, food and music into a relaxed and sophisticated
mix of cool urban savvy.
The
future
With Idée having long nurtured artists from around the world-while Kurosaki discovered
Newson as a student 15 years ago, also he introduced Starck to Asia and Japan in the
mid-1980s before Starck broke into the mainstream with design houses such as Alessi-it
remains a leading forum for aspiring designers. “Form follows your mind” is the
philosophy underpinning Idée’s Tokyo Design Block, an annual design forum canvassing
the latest talent from around the world that aims, says Idée, to “trigger a new
scene in Tokyo revolving around music, youth culture, counterculture and events coming off
the streets.”
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| Interiors
Idée |
Held between
October 12 and 15, this forum for “new design” will feature simultaneous
exhibitions and events at various locations around Tokyo including parks, galleries and
shops. Added to the mix is the Idee design competition-this year titled
“compatibility”-whose theme is the fusing of the relationship between
“design” and “art” and “architecture” and
“furniture.” “By seeing those contrastive substances equally, you’d be
able to see things you’ve never seen before,” says Idée, who are looking to
promote “designed furniture, interior and products using a free perspective and free
ideas.”
Take off
Idee’s boldest project thus far, the launching of the new Sputnik center, slated to
open in Omotesando in November, will be a veritable smorgasbord of “free,” and
radical, design perspectives. A number of designers were commissioned to develop the
range, which will provide a fresh counterpoint to Idée's standard housewares fare.
Featured items include the lung-shape ashtray-an ashtray can be clean if you wash it, but
your lungs? This cute ashtray with a cynical message was designed by Hips Curbe Lab design
and will sell for JY2500 for both the right and left set. Elsewhere, the Free
Wheelin’ Franklin is a funky, remote-controlled side table. The concept, says Idée,
is furniture as pet. While the table-painted red and made of Perspex and
aluminum-can’t go up and down, it can go anywhere else, which might justify the
JY150,000 price tag.
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| Soap block
model at their Sputnik new store |
In the Japanese traditional craft vein-but with a twist-is the Wappa (JY43,000), an
elegant, starfish-shaped lamp made with bentwood that emits a scent of cedar when
lighting. Similarly, the Pod (JY35,000) floor seat, designed by Kaname Okajima, employs
contemporary design with traditional Asian material and Asian lifestyle (sitting on the
floor), and was highly rated at its first exhibition in London last year. Typically, Marc
Newson rounds off the collection with, apart from the space-age bicycle that has been a
feature of the Sputnik’s preview collection, a quirky couplet of ceramic mugs that
are direct replicas of ribbed plastic cups.
Coinciding with the Tokyo Design Block, a prototype exhibition of the Sputnik range will
be held at the Spiral building at Aoyama in October, providing an opportunity to sneak a
preview of the latest free-form design-“Sputnik is the orbiting, universal flow that
encircles Idée, which represents earth,” says Ikeda. It will also whet appetites for
the multilevel, multimedia Sputnik “space station”-featuring a shop, bar, cafE
design studio and offices for the erudite Sputnik magazine-that, when opened in November,
will make a welcome addition to the Tokyo design collective.
6-1-16 Minami-Aoyama,
Minato-ku. Tel: 03-3409-6581. Fax: 03-3409-9851. Open: 11am-7pm daily. Website: www.idee.co.jp |
