KURAMATA TO WATASHI
ASSIGNMENT THREE DESIGN PIONEERS PHOEBE STEFANIDIS S3717742
CONTENTS
0 1 2-3 4 7 8-9 11 12-13 14 20 21 22-23 24-25 26 27
Introduction Designer Biography Poster Expectations / Proposition Quote Shiro Kuramata Materials Kuramata Timeline Global Influences Perfume Bottle Development Perfume Bottle Final Acrylic Cylindric Oxidized Acrylic Reflection References
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INTRODUCTION
Postmodernism was both regarded a philosophical movement and an art movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from vast and profound changes in Western society around the time of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modernity created a significant rise in the standard of living and has innovated and established the way we live today. Known for his mysterious vibrations and magical accumulation of both traditional and modern concepts, Shiro Kuramata was an ever influencing designer that belonged to the postmodern design era. In his lifetime, he was able to create and design such pieces that we still know of and talk about today, designing many interiors for Issaye Miyake throughout his life and designing furniture and beauty for the rest of the world. In taking traction and inspiration from his designs, there are conceptual drawings and designs that show how he has influenced the world, and particularly myself in dedicating these designs to him.
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DESIGNER BIOGRAPHY
Trained initially as an architect, Kuramata (Figure 5) left his studies prematurely in the 1950’s to work for Teikokukizai, a Japanese furniture company, later returning to study interior design. Kuramata worked with Vitra, Cappellini, Memphis and various other Japanese-based design firms. He had a powerful and lasting relationship with Issey Miyake, which facilitated Kuramata in designing the majority of interiors of the Miyake boutiques across the globe, from the late 1970s through 1990. In Shiro’s work, function always was regarded, but the aesthetic qualities of each material always had precedent, shown in his best-known piece, the Miss Blanche Chair 1988 (Figure 2); a back of transparent acrylic resin, in which several paper roses are embedded. Kuramata was known best for his minimalist furniture made from industrial materials such as his How High The Moon Armchair, made of nickel-plated steel mesh. Both chairs personify what Sottsass coined Kuramata’s “mysterious vibrations”, influencing the space around the design.
Ettore Sottsass
Phillipe Starck
Ettore Sottsass was probably one of the most influential designers of the postmodern era. The Italians were the first to start focusing on the creation of unique new functions in order to further move modernity in its strides. Unlike many of his peers, Sottsass decided to take a more global education. He visited countries such as India, Ceylon, Nepal, and Burma. These travels allowed him to gain less of an ideological education and more of an existential one. Sottsass also studied Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino from 1935-1939. We often link postmodernism with quirky designs with bold straight shapes and bright contrasting colours. This is because of the great influence that Sottsass played on the aesthetic of postmodern design. Sottsass was very interested in matter and how it conveys a narrative. How materials change based on what method is applied to them. Sottsass was the founder of the Memphis group. A notable design collective of radicals who changed many methods and created a discourse for traditional design.
Starck, born January 18, 1949 worked as an industrial Starck’s work as an aircraft engineer. Developing mo he became one of the most notable figures in design adulation for the way Warhol took the artistic world a create his own company ‘Starck Products’. He market where in his user took precedent to all else. He acqui French president Francois Mitterrand hired him to joi personal residence. This recognition pushed Starck’s go on the become recognised for his architecture as w foundation for success.
Alessandro Mendini
Martine Bedin
Alessandro was born in Milan in 1931 and graduated in 1959. He is an architect, artist, designer, theorist and journalist. He began his professional career at the Nizzoli studio. He has edited many magazines dedicated to the architecture and design such as Casabella, Modo and Domus through which he has shared his ideas of renewing the world of design. Along with noticeable designers such as Branzi and Sottsass, he played a great role in the renovation of Italian design in the 80s. In 1979 Mendini joined the Alchimia Studio. This group of radical designer in Memphis had challenged functionalist designers by questioning the uses of our day to day product and created products for artistic and symbolic reason, referring to culture and kitsch. This was at the beginning very much outside the norms of industrial production. Mendini was involved in a unique idea of a modernity of the surface, a decorative, stenographic sort of modernity that, while not dealing with a structural reform of the world brought around a development of the so called “skin” of design. A non-enlightened modernity but not even a conservative one. It changed the meaning of reality without touching its deep structures. Mendini’s work with Alessi and Swatch quite clearly highlighted this new design style. Products took on a new job and became a gift, collector’s item, while still being able to uphold its function.
Born in Bordeaux in 1957 and raised in Corsica Franc era went to study architecture in Paris before being o Florence. It is here she found herself amongst the de Studio Alchimia, Superstudio and Archizoom Associa by the convention breaking antics of their designs. T received by the French, when Bedin returned to Paris designs she was invited to join the Memphis group w was here she created the Super Lamp with its quirky capturing the essence of both Memphis and essentia many other designers from Memphis argue that Mem it does not rely on any ques from the past for inspirat in her time at Memphis assisted in revolutionizing the returned to Paris where she designed furniture and o do to this day.
major events
1970 Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse five rockets him 1974 First personal computer was developed as well
Post modernism 1975 End of Vietnam war
1979 Sony Walkman invented allowing people acces 1981 MTV launches
1981 The first cases of AIDS are identified and an ep
1982 Michael Jackson releases Thriller, breaking grou
1985 Bob Geldof brought famine in Africa to the for f 1886 Chernobyl powerplant explosion
wim crouwel
Crouwel began his career in 1955 creating exhibition, graphic, and product designs. From 1964, Crouwel designed posters, catalogues and exhibitions for the Stede in Amsterdam. The typeface New Alphabet, was designed in 1967, a design that embraces the limitations of the cathode ray tube technology used by early data dis and phototypesetting equipment, only using horizontal and vertical strokes. Other typefaces he created are named Fodor and Gridnik which are some of his most w Crouwel’s use of flat colour in his graphic designs follow a strong aesthetic of minimalism, allowing his typeface creations to be showcased.
SHIRO kuramata
l designer and architect inspired by his father, Andre ost of his iconic creations in his home city Paris n during the post-modernist movement. He grew and imposed his name across it, influencing him to ted himself to the world as the people’s designer ired ultimate recognition for his work in 1982 when in a team of designers that would work on his s design career to the next level where he would well as the product designs which he used as a
“For him, an object, a piece of furniture, an installation is never finished inside the borders of its own physicality. For him, around an object, or around a piece of furniture or around an installation there is never a silence, never abstract dust; always the air around is vibrating, as if it were shaken by a central provocation. That’s why very often Shiro was trying to represent not only the object, or the furniture, or the installation but also the many mysterious vibrations that were produced around.” —Ettore Sottsass from Vibrations in the Air, 1991 Materials were central to the work of Shiro Kuramata. His palette of various qualities being reflectivity, transparency, translucency, opacity, tactility were shown fluidly throughout his designs. In Kuramata’s works, the form is a result, a by product of the materials, giving them a voice; the material is the content of the furniture.
Michele De Lucchi
ce, Bedin like many designers of the Post-modern offered a scholarship to complete her studies in esigners of many post-modern studios such as ati and Bedin found herself influenced and intrigued This outrageous design, (anti)style was not well s so when Sottsass visited her and reviewed her where she was responsible for managing lighting. It colours, block form and playful ergonomic wheels ally the post-modern era. Although, Bedin alike mphis is distinctly separate from post-modernism as tion. Nevertheless the iconic designs Bedin imagined e trends of the era. After Memphis concluded, Bedin objects under her own studio which she continues to
Born in Ferrara, Italy in 1951, Michele De Lucchi went on to study architecture at the University of Florence graduating in 1975 at allowing him to be at the forefront of postmodern architecture and design. As the 70s were a radical time for change, De Lucchi found himself apart of many design movements and groups such as Carvart, Alchimia, and Memphis which all sought to challenge the conventional and explore the Avant Garde. De Lucchi was a founding member of Memphis and designed furniture such as the First chair and the Sinvolo floor lamp, which all sought to use vibrant block color and unconventional form to provoke society to ‘question everything which was already established’[De Lucchi 2008]. Possibly De Lucchi most famous design is the Tolomeo lamp of 1978 which combines a slim, and relatively simple aluminum frame with adjustable ergonomics earning De Lucchi the Compasso d’Oro. At the conclusion of the 80s, the Memphis group conducted its last exhibit, as its anti-style conventions had themselves become a style and therefor it was only fitting to start something new. De Lucchi founded his own, inter disciplinary studio; Produzione Private where he and his team focus on using traditional and established craftsmanship to create limited edition designs.
m to the top of the New York Times best seller list
1990 The World Wide Web was invented
as the early beginnings of the internet.
1989 Berlin wall fell, marking the end of the cold war 1990 Nelson Mandela is released after spending 27 years in Robben Island prison
ss to portable recorded music
1993 The European Union is ratified 1993 the first message between mobiles is sent
pidemic spreads
1994 Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is released straying away from the norms of film through parody and cliché
und for music videos
1996 John Galliano takes over as head designer for Dior
front of media attention with Live Aid
1997 Diana Spencer tragically passes in car crash
m
elijk Museum splay screens well known.
2000 the human genome is sequenced and decoded
INTRODUCTION TO ERA A modern society has existed for quite some time now. What we consider modern is the reversal of the one story. The story comes in many different forms depending from which culture you originate from. But overall, religion was what gave people life meaning. This was pre modernist times. Modernism was the moment in history when we began to create our own stories. It was both regarded a philosophical movement and an art movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching changes in western society around the time of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modernity saw great rise to many incredible achievements. Science was at its most rapid movement and the industrialisation of our market drove huge numbers on the blackboards. Modernity had created a great rise in many people’s standard of living and has basically kick-started the way we live today. What also was a product of modernity was WW1 and WW2. Post war, people began to question modernity and its functionality. This is where Postmodernism arised. People began to critique modernism as Andreas Huyssen said it “one critic’s postmodernism is another critic’s modernism.” Designers, politicians, philosophers, artists, musician etc all began to question modernity on how we went wrong? How did it end up with a war? Therefore we started to see funky looking shelves and couches because designer have questioned its use and asked what is a shelf and why do we constrict its form to purely functional?
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EXPECTATIONS / PROPOSITION Shiro Kuramata is a designer that I have chosen to focus on for the final assignment. He has stood out to me from the initial research done for the postmodern poster. He stood out as a designer that took risks with his designs, and his adaptation of traditional Japanese methods combined with more modern approaches is intriguing and inspiring. I have titled this work ‘Kuramata to Watashi’ meaning, ‘Kuramata and Me’ to represent the way that he has influenced how I look at design and the way my final designs in this assignment were shaped and developed because of him.
7 “Postmodernity as a phase of knowing and practice, abandoning the assumptions, prejudices, and constraints of modernism to embrace the contradictions, irony, and profusion of pop and mass culture� (Approaches To PoMo, 2019, Postmodernism/ Postmodernity section, para. 5) is how it may be defined and understood.
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“You need love and dreams for design as well.” SHIRO KURAMATA
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Materials were essential to the work of Shiro Kuramata, “for him, an object, a piece of furniture, an installation is never finished inside the borders of its own physicality. For him, around an object, or around a piece of furniture or around an installation there is never a silence, never abstract dust; always the air around is vibrating, as if it were shaken by a central provocation. That’s why very often Shiro was trying to represent not only the object, or the furniture, or the installation but also the many mysterious vibrations that were produced around.” — Ettore Sottsass from Vibrations in the Air, 1991 (Design File 011, 2019, Shiro Kuramata section, para. 1). His palette of various materials and qualities are reflectivity, transparency, translucency, opacity, tactility shown throughout his designs. In Kuramata’s works, the form is a result, a consequence of the materials, giving them a voice, the material being the content of the furniture. Kuramata turned his attention to acrylic, glass, aluminium, and steel mesh, embracing a refined transparency and lightness. During this period, Kuramata designed audacious, irregular, and at times surreal furnishings, utilising materials in poetic or humanistic contexts that challenge their real significance.
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1965 In 1965 he founded his own design practice
1976
1953
Shiro Kuramata graduated from Tokyo polytechnic high school, where he studied woodcraft and went to work for a furniture The Pyramid company shelving unit for Ishamaru
1968
Spiral Clock B was The Glass chair commissioned by Nichinan Co Ltd. It features an aluminium clock face placed inside a moulded, transparent acrylic capsule. This design was inspired by a childhood memory that Kuramata had He designed of transparent first Issey balloons, which Miyake store danced about to their own, as if they did not belong Imperial in this space Mobiletti, or time. By encasing the Joined clock inside the Sottsass’s acrylic capsule, collective, the Kuramata design group wanted to ‘Memphis,’ at present its founding in something 1981. separate about the idea of time itself; that it is a concept with other dimensions, rather than just a display of time.
1981 1969
The Luminous table (1969)
1983
Interior for the Issey Miyake store in Ginza, Tokyo
The Kyoto table A Kuramata chair circa 1983-84
1984
Interior for the Issey Miyake store in Bergdorf Goodman, in New York City
1986
Kuramata’s How High the Moon chair for Vitra (1986)
1987
Kuramata’s work spotted by Giulio Cappellini, he soon began manufacturing his products in 1987.
metal legs as well as the panels created from resin. The process of incorporating red-rose petals in the chair meant resin first had to be poured to half of the intended thickness of the panel, before being set and allowing the petals to be placed on top of the set resin to avoid them sinking through.
1988 1989 The Laputa The Bent Glass bed for table Ephemera
Miss Blanche Chair, characterised by a kind of graceful immateriality, the Miss Blanche chair, constructed from the four
Cabinet de Curiosite
13 1990
Feather Stool, 1990
1991
Shiro Kuramata died in 1991, although his designs are still being manufactured and sold to this day. The forms and concepts have stayed the same to stay loyal and true to his designs and immaculate design legacy that he has left behind.
In 1974 the first personal computer was developed as well as the early beginnings of the internet.- with the early stages of the development of the internet and computers, Kuramata was influenced by this new technology, as in his designs we can see that his ideation and concepts were moving towards a more digital way of thinking and digital way of producing and conceptualising. ‘Uninterested in ergonomics or more practical concerns, Kuramata’s work, like that of his “maestro” Sottsass and their contemporaries, focused instead upon questioning traditional form, material, and use through their increasingly conceptual work.’ During the 1970’s and 1980’s Kuramata was privy to numerous possibilities of new technologies and industrial materials, evidential of his realisation and liking of technologies. - turning to materials such as aluminium, acrylic, glass, and transparent finishes. ‘Combining Japanese aesthetics with echoes of Western popular culture, Kurmata celebrated technology, minimalism, and material pleasure in his work, which often resounded with notes of surrealistic imagery and wry humour” (Collections, 2019). Influenced by postwar Japan, it can be said that Kuramata was trying to maintain the traditional ways of the Japanese culture and design in his works, with the combination of often described humorous and surrealist elements in his work, to possibly bring light and a clearer perspective to this time in the world. By his designs provoking humour, he would have been able to influence and control difficult times in history through his somewhat whimsical designs, giving people something to look forward to. With the Vietnam war ending in 1975 and the cold war ending in 1989, we can notice some of Kuramata’s most whimsical designs and interiors that he is possibly best known for. His ‘How High the Moon’ and his ‘Miss Blanche Chair’ were both created in this period being two of his most noted and extravagantly interesting works. GLOBAL INFLUENCES ON HIS WORK
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COLLAGE OF MATERIALS/DETAILS THAT YOUR DESIGNER USESIMAGE & TEXT
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CONCEPT 1 PERFUME BOTTLE DEVELOPMENT
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The perfume bottle is very symbolic of Kuramata’s designs as his obsession ad love for acrylic was undeniable. Perfume bottles designed by Kuramata exude beauty and minimalistic design features.
PERFUME BOTTLE FINAL
23 CONCEPT 2 ACRYLIC CYLINDRIC The use of acrylic and aluminium is truly reflective of Kuramata’s designs. I used these materials to truly show that I was influenced by his materials and forms. The shapes of the legs is a pattern and orientation that he used in his glass furniture designs, I adapted this to introduce a true Kuramata feel to the shape and design.
25 CONCEPT 3 OXIDIZED ACRYLIC The combination of acrylic and oxidized steel, is also reflective of Kuramata’s work. Even though he used the two materials in different designs, I have combined them to get a true representation of his works.
26 REFLECTION 20th century furniture design has made an impact on the way I see furniture design and has definitely influenced and broadened my knowledge of design eras, movements, and periods in time of trends and the influential factors. In this last assignment it was really interesting to view events in history that correlated to a year or date that a designer had created another artefact. It was interesting to notice how this event had influenced or effected their design in any way. Shiro Kuramata has definitely influenced the way i see objects and to think about the space around them rather than just the form and shape itself.
REFERENCES
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https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2013/december/23/the-inspiration-behind-kuramatas-clock/ https://www.pinterest.es/pin/550705860665048599/ http://www.friedmanbenda.com/artists/shiro-kuramata/7 https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2013/december/23/theinspiration-behind-kuramatas-clock/ http://www.moderndesign.org/2012/04/shiro-kuramata-glass-shelves-1.html http://www.friedmanbenda.com/artists/shiro-kuramata/5 https://collections.dma.org/essay/rXL6ygx9 https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2013/december/12/the-japanese-art-group-that-inspired-shiro-kuramata/ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/747429 https://collections.dma.org/essay/rXL6ygx9 http://npo-plat.org/kuramata-shiro-en.htmlz http://mocoloco.com/book-shiro-kuramata/