Title: Japan: The New Mix. Architects, Interiors, and More.
Author: Masaaki Takahashi
Editor: Kumiko Sakamoto, Janelle McCulloch
Photographer/s: Ano, Daichi; Araki, Yoshihisa; Asakawa, Satoshi; Atami, Shunichi; Atarashi, Ryota; Cohrssen, Jimmy; Goode, Gregory; Hiraga, Shigeru; Hirai, Hiroyuki; Hosoya, Jin; Iwasaki, Minoru; Kawamura, Koichi; Kida, Katsuhisa; Kohda, Mori; Mantovani, Francesca; Matsumura, Yoshiharu; Miyashita, Akiyoshi; Nakagawa, Nobuaki; Ohashi, Tomio; Ohmori, Yuki; Ohno, Shigeru; Shimomura, Yasunori; Shito, Mikio; Takayama, Kozo; Takeuchi, Yuji; Yaginuma, Koui; Yamada, Masayoshi; Yoshida, Makoto.
Photography courtesy of: CLAUDIO COLUCCI DESIGN; CURIOSITY; HIROSHI NAKAMURA & NAP ARCHITECTS CO., LTD; Hitoshi Abe Atelier; MOUNT FUJI ARCHITECTS STUDIO; Nacása & Partners Inc.; Office of Ryue Nishizawa; SANAA (Sejima And Nishizawa And Associates); Shinkenchiku-sha.
Designer: Asumi Yoshino
Translation: Alice Tallents
ISBN: 978-18647-0267-5
Size: 216mm by 267mm, 264p.
Publisher: The Images Publishing Group Pty Ltd
Publisher www: www.imagespublishing.com
Published in: 2007
Japan: The New Mix examines a fascinating assembly of architects and interior designers that have been working in Japan since the turn of the millennium. Providing insight into the different forces and influences that have impacted the world of design in Japan, the book is filled with information about innovative, exciting and highly productive individuals and teams that are among the most interesting figures in their fields currently working in the world today.
The book examines 21 designers or design teams who all have worked a great deal in the Japanese design industry. Some of them are not originally from Japan but they have chosen it as their place of work due to its traditions and opportunities and, according to the author Masaaki Takahashi, their work has become an integral part of the Japanese design landscape, providing inspiration to the next generation. For each section, the focus is not on the works or projects but on the designers themselves. Takahashi writes two separate passages for each designer, one to touch on a few of their projects that are included in Japan: The New Mix through photos and diagrams and one to examine the stories of the designers—their history, their influences and the reasons that they have become as influential themselves as they are. The second of these two written passages is fairly large in order to give a strong overview of the designers, and the writings are accompanied by a wide variety of photographs that showcase some of their best works of design. The book is concluded with an essay on Japan’s architectural design and a list of the design projects that were included in the book, some with attached blueprints. This final section is printed on quite thick, rough paper, highly contrasting with the clean gloss of the majority of the book, and is more functional in content and form.
The book is brilliant. It shows just how diverse the design industry in Japan is and how wonderfully bizarre the heights to which it stretches can be. Designers put together spaces that range from combining traditional materials with traditional layouts up to superlatively modern, crazy designs that look like they are from the set of Blade Runner or Star Trek. Explaining the minds from which these designs spring and the intentions that lead to their innovations is just as interesting as looking at the designs themselves, and there are some incredible examples of modern design in this book.
The book is particularly interesting in a historical context for Japan, which has always seen construction that is predominantly wood-based. Modern years and outside influences have brought concrete and steel construction to its shores, but residential architecture still sees a large proportion built in fairly traditional wood designs. The designs in this book are on the modern end of that spectrum, with most showing a preference for steel, glass and concrete, but there are a few designs such as the Anya wagashi store (36) or the MEGU restaurant in New York (68) that see a very conscious traditional influence on their design from traditional sources and a great deal of wood used in their interiors. While the influence of modernism have changed the fabric of design in Japan, there are still call-backs to traditional design elements, where wood plays the foremost part.
There are a lot of architects and designers that are examined in the book and they all have different interpretations and contributions to give to the contemporary design industry. The very first inclusion, Mount Fuji Architects Studio (8), uses a great deal of wood in their constructions, but eschew straight lines and level planes, creating structures that are slightly warped. The very next team examined, Torafu Architects (16), similarly use a great of wood in some of their projects such as the Template in Claska, a hotel with charmingly playful storage in a wooden feature wall, but also explore some less traditional forms in projects like Spinning Objects, a showroom featuring modern platforms that seem to float and spin throughout the space and certainly seem like no other store you would have been in. This dichotomy is prevalent throughout the whole book.
One designer who combines these two mind-sets in one studio is Masamichi Katayama from Wonderwall Inc. (120). Some of his projects, such as the 100%ChocolateCafe, are quite traditional in their design (although he does add in playful elements like the chocolate-block-shaped ceiling panels), but some of them are incredibly non-conforming. OriginalFake is a shop in Tokyo that is split into two halves, one having a clean sterile tone with white as the primary colour and the other using warm wood and deep black notes. This contrast is encapsulated in a plastic statue that straddles the central divide, one half of which shows the exterior of a cartoon character and the other half of which reveals its internal organs; a slightly disturbing but highly arresting piece that grants the store an incredible focal point.
Japan: The New Mix does an exceptional job of exploring the conventions of a country that is at the forefront of modern design. When most of the designers in the book were growing up, Japan was the place for budding designers to travel to from the west to explore their philosophies, and now these designers and those that have come after them have created an extremely vibrant ecosystem that is spreading back out into the wider world. This book is brilliantly written with a very solid translation into English and is an expert analysis of where design in Japan currently sits.