::Metropolis Tokyo :: INTERIORS

Trina O'Hara takes us on a tour of international furniture fairs to find the top Japanese designers at work today.

Every year, British design guru Sir Terence Conran sends a notable designer out into the world with £30,000 and a brief to "find the most interesting design objects you'd like to live with." This year, architect/sculptor Thomas Heatherwick came back with, among other things, a biodegradable paper coffin, a compass for pointing Muslims toward Mecca, and an organ donor T-shirt. To represent Japan, he chose a glue that's applied to the eyelid to change the apparent shape of the eye. Ridiculous as the product may seem, Heatherwick's choice is not surprising.

If you were to ask people on the street to characterize Japanese design, the response would likely fall into one of two categories: the quirky, "cool," gadget-oriented pop-culture style increasingly visible in Japan, or the subtle, minimal Zen element more traditionally found here. And it's those same two categories that today's dynamic and influential Japanese designers are drawing from to light up the radar screens at international design fairs.

There are four major international showcases for contemporary interior design products. In September it's 100% Design London, in January the Cologne Furniture Fair, in February the Stockholm Furniture Fair and in April the world's most important furniture fair, the Milan Salone Internazionale del Mobile. At these circus-like events, "excitable" architects, interior designers, industrial designers and high-profile furniture manufacturers clamber for the latest novelty, cutting-edge design, market opportunity, business collaboration, fashion trend, and behind all this, the star designer.

Fair trades
At 100% Design London, Japanese design gurus Ken Yokomizo and Yukichi Anno provide a case in point. Yokomizo surprised furniture fair goers with his quirky crossbreed of clothing and lighting. His wearable, rabbit ear-like reading lamps (hats that wouldn't seem odd in the comedy show South Park) use integrated LED products and are designed to sit on your head and glow in the dark. Designer Yukichi Anno, on the other hand, had a more subtle idea for the humble home lamp. His balanced, yin and yang "Lan-Turn" looks equally at home in a traditional oriental setting as in a Mid-Century Modern setting. It is definitely one for your Zen-style shopping basket. They're available in red or white and will be on sale from June. For details, visit the website at www.anno.co.jp

At the Cologne Furniture Fair, Yokohama-born product designer Rieko Miyata transformed 90 meters of pink/gray ribbon into her sensuous "Saya" (pod) lamp. "Saya" grew out of a project in November 2002 when four young Japanese designers gathered in Fukui Prefecture, one of the major ribbon-producing districts in Japan, to create objects and tableware using ribbon.

Miyata first developed individual technology for forming solid objects with ribbon while designing the "Uzu" ribbon bowl and "Uze" vase. She then turned her attention to ribbon as a material for lighting. Her efforts attracted the attention of the German Design Council, who invited her to exhibit at the Cologne Furniture Fair. Not a bad start for this 27-year-old graduate of Kuwasawa Design School.

The Japanese have always had a liking for Scandinavian design. So perhaps it is not surprising that in recent years, when the Japanese economy ground to a halt, many Japanese talents felt drawn to design epicenters such as Sweden and Denmark. Last year at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, the leading Swedish interiors magazine, Skšna Hem, awarded the furniture fair design prize to the stool "Twister" by Yurioko Takahashi from Swedese.

Among the 750 exhibitors this year was Tomoyuki Matsuoka, a 33-year-old graduate of the Product Design Department at Chiba University and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in Copenhagen. Matsuoka was a fair favorite with his chic "Island" furniture based on the philosophy that furniture should harmonize with the rhythm of nature; be simple, beautiful, functional and comfortable-and completely independent of trends. "I am thinking not only about furniture itself but also about human life through it. For me, to design furniture is to design people's lifestyle," he says.

Given the large number of Japanese guests that visit the Stockholm Furniture Fair and the intense cultural exchange between Sweden and Japan, young, industrious Japanese designers have a wild and exciting future in Scandinavia.

A new orbit
The high profile of Japanese design also continues at the Milan Furniture Fair. Since 1961, the fair has expanded to include several associated shows including the biennial events Euroluce (lighting), Eurocucina (kitchen furniture), Eimu (office furniture) and Salone Satellite (which showcases emerging designers, new prototypes, and student work from design colleges and universities around the world).

Japan has fared particularly well at Salone Satellite. Since 2001, when people lined up to test Sputnik's lima bean-looking floor chairs, the Japanese design collective together with Teruo Kurosaki of Idée interiors have consistently presented wild and cool creations. Last year, Japan Design Power Designers Poly-Site, Nendo, Takada Design, Keiko Oyabu, MOGU, Sachio Hibara, Ken Yokomizo, Setsue Shinobu ITO and Tonerico also shone over about 400 exhibitors in the Salone Satellite new talent forum.

This year, in an exhibition titled "Japanese Talent," furniture designer Masashi Sawada (who also was a designer for Idée) is taking his turn in the spotlight. His "Ami Bench" and "Ami Sofa" are an example of a Japanese designer leaving Japanese minimalism in search of new territory. They feature woven red plush material coupled with an industrial steel frame, and look destined for homes of modern furniture collectors.

The growing presence of Japanese designers at international fairs such as the ones in London, Cologne, Stockholm and Milan shows their growing power in global products. Perhaps the recent weakness in Japan's domestic market has, in some way, helped to push Japanese designers to test new ideas and new markets. Whatever the case, these young guns are increasingly making headlines in the design world, and unlike others they are doing so by developing ideas that are either modern or traditional, reflecting a unique mixture that goes to the heart of Japanese society today.