Japanese Design, MoMA Design Series – Paperback

This book—the third volume in the MoMA Design Series, featuring works in The Museum of Modern Art’s extraordinary collection—traces the development of Japanese design from the country’s craft revival in the early twentieth century to the objects of high technology that have been a specialty of Japanese designers since midcentury. Japanese designers’ special ability to combine aesthetic tradition with contemporary visual culture and material innovation has created a distinctive and exceptionally successful industry in Japan, which has produced such divergent icons of modern design as Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool, the Sony Walkman, the Wink Lounge Chair, by Toshiyuki Kita, and the Toyota Prius.

 

A lively introduction by Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum, provides an overview of Japan’s design culture; an essay and timeline by Penny Sparke, professor of design history and a pro-vice chancellor of Kingston University, London, illuminates the masterpieces of modern Japanese design. 160 pp.; 105 illus.