Le monde de Kazumasa Nagai 永井一正 (1929〜)

Kazumasa Nagai, who was born in 1929 in Osaka, Japan, is an multiple poster award-winner, whose works are exhibited in many museums of modern art, among others: at MoMa in New York and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. The artist creates until now. His style evolved from presenting abstract forms to organic ones, animals and plants have become a frequent topic. He is true to the traditional graphical techniques and animals presented on the posters often have symbolic meaning and refer to the tradition of Japanese art. Kasumasa Nagai gives his animals an original form, often simplified and composed into vibrant colors. This is how the posters fulfill its role, conveying a clear message.

Source : Japanese Design
Other sources :
Animalarium
The Powerhouse Museum
Rob Dunlavey
I desire vintage posters

Guchol Strikes Japan

Japan approves 2 reactor restarts, more seen ahead

The Asahi Shinbun, June 16, 2012.

Japan on June 16 approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors despite mass public opposition, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, his popularity ratings sagging, had backed the restarts for some time. He announced the government's decision at a meeting with key ministers, giving the go-ahead to two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. at Oi in western Japan.
The decision, despite public concerns over safety after the big earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors.

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Eki-bento (Japanese train station bentos)

  

 From Tokyo to Kyoto with a "yasai tappuri bento" 野菜たっぷり弁当 ! Delicious.

Kikkoman's Soy Sauce Dispenser

Just 16 and recently released from a naval academy, Kenji Ekuan witnessed Hiroshima’s devastation from the train taking him home. “Faced with that nothingness, I felt a great nostalgia for human culture,” he recalled from the offices of G. K. Design, the firm he co-founded in Tokyo in 1952. “I needed something to touch, to look at,” he added. “Right then I decided to be a maker of things.”

One of the most enduring objects in his 60-year design career — which includes the Akita bullet train and Yamaha motorbikes — is the Kikkoman soy-sauce dispenser. Introduced in 1961, it has been in continuous production ever since. Traditional in its grace yet modern in its materials, the bottle’s design drew on Ekuan’s experiences at war’s end. The atomic blast killed his younger sister, and his father, a Buddhist priest, died of radiation-related illness a year later, prompting Ekuan to train briefly as a Buddhist monk in Kyoto.

But he quickly left that training behind, fascinated by the G.I.’s he saw roaming Japan’s ruins. In their jeeps and immaculately pressed gabardine trousers, they were like a “moving exhibition,” extolling the virtues of American invention. Ekuan pored over the newspaper cartoon “Blondie” for clues on American consumer culture. He enrolled at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, urging fellow students to give shape to a contemporary “Japanese lifestyle.”

It took three years for Ekuan and his team to arrive at the dispenser’s transparent teardrop shape. More than 100 prototypes were tested in the making of its innovative, dripless spout (based on a teapot’s, but inverted). The design proved to be an ideal ambassador. With its imperial red cap and industrial materials (glass and plastic), it helped timeless Japanese design values — elegance, simplicity and supreme functionality — infiltrate kitchens around the world.

More than 300 million dispensers have been sold, in more than 70 countries. In 2007, to mark its 50th year in the United States, Kikkoman issued a gold-capped version, and the company has also given souvenir bottles, bearing the image of Mickey Mouse, to groups of schoolchildren visiting the factory. But Ekuan’s original design persists.

“For me it represents not the new Japan, but the real Japan,” he says. “The shape is so gentle. Of course, during the war, we were forced into acting differently. But for a long time, some 1,000 years, the history of the Japanese people was very gentle.” 

By LESLIE CAMHI, June 15, 2012.

Source : The New York Times

Jōmon 縄文 - Dogū 土偶

Some of the most fascinating pottery ever made in Japan dates back to the Jomon period (about 10,000 BC to 300 BC). The open-pit fired large vessels had the most amazing decorative features and continue to inspire potters today, most notably the late Okabe Mineo, Mashiko's Shimaoka Tatsuzo, and Bizen's "kiln god" Mori Togaku.

In 1990, the Shigaraki Ceramic Park Museum hosted an exhibition entitled Primitivism in Contemporary Ceramics highlighting many Jomon works and how they relate to what's happening now. The grand flowing traditions of Japanese ceramic art thrive today due to the living presence and inspiration that past works impart. There is no now without the past and there is no future without the now.

Some of the most intriguing works from the Jomon period are clay figurines called dogu. There are many theories on what they were used for with the main agreement being they were a talisman for good health or safe childbirth. As many were excavated in fragments, it's believed that after the wish was fulfilled, or not, the dogu was broken and thrown on the trash heap; that's where many were discovered. Another theory is that these were goddesses to whom Jomon people prayed to for food and health. Other explanations are toys for children, funerary offerings, or objects used in some unknown ritual. And, of course, there are those who believe they were aliens from outer space. Yet, if you look at similar primitive artifacts from around the world (the Valdivia culture of Ecuador, for example) there is a certain resemblance that can't be explained in logical terms. It might have been part of the collective consciousness of the times though, or did earth in fact have space-suited visitors from a distant galaxy? This dogu sure seems to fit the match! 

Dogu were found all over Japan with northern Japan, the Tohoku region, yielding the most variety. Dogu first appeared in early Jomon but began to flourish in Middle Jomon through Late Jomon. (For a timeline outlining the development of Japanese pottery, please click here.) Many of them have the distinctive Jomon rope-cord patterns while others have been intricately carved with arabesque-like designs. Some in outer-space garb are known as the "goggles type" and no explanation is needed for that naming. Whatever the markings, they are all eerily moving and can't help but spark one's imagination in wondering about life so many thousand of years ago, and the miracle it is today.

As Joseph Campbell once wrote: "Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands (in this case looking at dogu), regard it for awhile. Forgetting its name and use, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, What is it? Its dimension of wonder opens, for the mystery of the being of that thing is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe, and yourself."

Source : Japanese Pottery Information center
Link : Wikipedia

Future Beauty - 30 years of Japanese Fashion 2012.7.28 - 2012.10.8

Link : Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art

STUDIO MUMBAI at TOTO Gallery・MA 2012.7.12 - 2012.9.22

In the next event at TOTO GALLERY・MA, the specialty architecture and design gallery operated by the TOTO Ltd. , we present STUDIO MUMBAI: PRAXIS, an exhibition which focuses on STUDIO MUMBAI, the firm overseen by one of India’s foremost contemporary architects, Bijoy Jain.

After studying architecture at university in India using the traditional educational technique centering on the teachings of a single professor (or “guru”), Jain moved to the U.S. to study Western architectural theory. Then, after getting practical experience in firms in both the U.S. and the U.K., he established STUDIO MUMBAI in his hometown of Mumbai, and began his career as a full-fledged architect. Making use of traditional techniques that have been handed down from generation to generation in India, and incorporating the cultural climate of the area, Jain has continued to make works that are notable for their rich qualities and spatiality.

The work of STUDIO MUMBAI is distinguished by the fact that the entire process from preparing the lot to the design and construction of the building are carried out manually by a network of architects and skilled craftsmen. The studio’s workshop is staffed by approximately 120 highly capable, resident artisans (carpenters, stone-masons, ironsmiths, metal workers, and well-sinkers among them) from various regions of India who, under Jain’s direction, analyze topographic and climatic conditions, dig wells to ensure a source of water, and create architecture using locally-derived materials and construction methods.

The reliable technical prowess of these artisans, who possess a variety of traditional knowhow passed down to them orally from their ancestors, is indispensable in building structures that can withstand the relentless conditions of violent heat in the dry season and monsoons in the rainy season. Based on their wisdom and skill, the architecture that emerges under Jain’s deeply considered direction promises its users a comfortable life in the area and at the same time contains an abundance of poetic sentiment that harmonizes with the landscape.

Moreover, Jain furnishes the artisans with sketchbooks and provides them with drawing lessons. In effect, the workers who, never having received a formal education are fundamentally illiterate, study how to “design” a building as they continue their work every day. While serving as the architectural head of STUDIO MUMBAI, Jain is also the leader of an extraordinarily skilled group of people, and is both a noted director who drives their talents, and an educator who teaches through his buildings.

Through his relationships with researchers and architects throughout the world, Jain assimilates the latest knowledge and ideas. And by staying abreast of the current conditions in India through his research in various Indian cities, and continually engaging in dialogues with his craftsmen and partners, he maneuvers a diverse range of skills and techniques in the right direction in order to realize a genuine work of architecture backed by a clear philosophy.

According to Jain, the title of this exhibition, PRAXIS, signifies a human approach to a specific practice, nature or society, and as a word that corresponds to the abstract notion of “theory,” suggests the process that stretches from “idea” to “practice.” In light of the fact that STUDIO MUMBAI is an open-door community populated by those with a desire to creature architecture as they move back and forth between a variety of ideas and practices to attain the optimal goal, the word is also suggestive of the firm’s work and existence as a whole.

In this exhibition, materials, models, sketches, and mockups that were actually used at STUDIO MUMBAI will be transported from India and reconstructed in Japan’s capital in a presentation called “STUDIO MUMBAI in Tokyo.” Visitors will have an opportunity to experience the air, light, and sound of STUDIO MUMBAI with all of their senses, and experience the world that Jain has realized while enjoying documentary information on the entire journey of Praxis.

TOTO GALLERY・MA

 

Link : TOTO gallery - MA Studio

Suna no onna 砂の女 (La femme des sables), Techigahara Hiroxhi, 1964

The Woman in the Dunes (砂の女 Suna no onna, literally "Sand woman," also translated as The Woman of the Dunes) is a film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and released in 1964. The screenplay for the film was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his 1962 novel of the same name.

An entomologist, Junpei Niki (played in the film by Eiji Okada), is on an expedition to collect insects which inhabit sand dunes. When he misses the last bus, villagers suggest he stay the night. They guide him down a rope ladder to a house in a sand quarry where a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) lives alone. She is employed by the villagers to dig sand for sale and to save the house from burial in the advancing sand.
When Junpei tries to leave the next morning, he finds the ladder removed. The villagers inform him that he must help the widow in her endless task of digging sand. Junpei initially tries to escape; upon failing he takes the widow captive but is forced to release her in order to receive water from the villagers.
Junpei becomes the widow's lover. However, he still desperately wants to leave. One morning, he escapes from the sand dune and starts running while being chased by the villagers. Junpei is not familiar with the geography of the area and eventually gets trapped in some quicksand. The villagers free him from the quicksand and then return him back to the widow.
Eventually, Junpei resigns himself to his fate. Through his persistent effort to trap a crow as a messenger, he discovers a way to draw water from the damp sand at night. He thus becomes absorbed in the task of perfecting his technology and adapts to his "trapped" life. The focus of the film shifts to the way in which the couple cope with the oppressiveness of their condition and the power of their physical attraction in spite of — or possibly because of — their situation.
At the end of the film Junpei gets his chance to escape, but he chooses to prolong his stay in the dune. A report after seven years declaring him missing is then shown hanging from a wall, written by the police and signed by his mother Shino.

Eiji Okada – Entomologist Niki Junpei
Kyōko Kishida – Woman
Hiroko Ito – Entomologist's wife (in flashbacks)
Koji Mitsui
Sen Yano
Kinzo Sekiguchi

Source : Wikipedia

Bingata: Colors and Shapes of the Ryukyu Dynasty 2012.6.13 - 2012.7.22

SUNTORY MUSEUM OF ART / BINGATA:

Colors and shapes of the ryukyu dynasty commemorating the 40th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan.

Bingata is a textile dyed with a technique created in Okinawa for clothing used by specific classes of Ryukyu-society, including royal and Shizoku families. The assortment of shapes created using paper patterns combines with unique Ryukyu colors to demonstrate the delightful capabilities of katazome (stencil dyeing). This exhibition presents superb examples of bingata, including some of the finest bingata dress made for the Ryukyu royal family, and also has the first public showing of the Matsuzakaya collection.

 

link: The Suntory Museum Tokyo

Hillside Terrace by Maki Fumihiko

Maki's Hillside Terrace

by Fumihiko Maki 

The Hillside Terrace project, a medium-density mixed-use development of apartments, shops, restaurants, and cultural facilities, took exactly 25 years from the first plans I drew in 1967 to the completion of its sixth phase in 1992. Although I have designed buildings and complexes far greater in physical scale over the past several decades, no other project has occupied my thoughts so continuously over time as Hillside Terrace has.

The flow of time can be measured against its diverse buildings and their relationship to the city of Tokyo as it grew to envelop them. Changes in the project's architectural character, materiality, and expression from phase to phase also reflect shifts in my own consciousness with the passage of time.

The opportunity to design Hillside Terrace — a commission I received almost immediately after setting up my architectural practice in Tokyo — was my first chance to confront the idea of modern architecture engaging, even creating, its urban context.

Though I was unaware of it at that time, the project would bring me a deeper understanding of the "collective form" phenomenon that had fascinated me in my early years of architectural study, strengthening the notion that architecture and cities share a distinct relationship to time.

In the mid-1960s, the Daikanyama district still retained traces of the wooded hills for which the greater Musashino region was once known. After each rain, the air was heavily laden with earthy scents. Zelkova trees rose high over the low townscape. Downtown Tokyo, though geographically close, was still perceived as a distant place.

It was in this context that my clients, the Asakura family, who for many generations had owned a 250-meter- (850-foot-) long strip of land along Daikanyama's main road, asked me to design a number of apartments and shops to be built in separate phases. I was still in my late thirties when I started on Hillside Terrace, and I felt quite fortunate to be given the opportunity to design several buildings on a single site at that age.

I realized that in designing a group of buildings, I could also generate exterior public spaces of a particular character.

Spatial character usually determines what is public in the city. A metropolis can provide overwhelming spaces unavailable in small cities or villages. However, public spaces in cities do not exist just for crowds or communities; they are also places that allow people to enjoy solitude.

Our urban spaces become much richer when there are many different layers of public spaces and meanings. In a metropolis, people take strolls, just as people in the countryside go to mountains or rivers; in that way, they are able to establish a special, spatial relationship between themselves and portions of the city.

The extent to which streets and other public spaces suitable for walking are provided can be considered an effective index in determining the quality of urbanity in a city. Sadly, the contemporary city is being gradually divested of such public character.

There are certain limits to the types of spaces that an architect can provide; at best, the spaces they design can form a relationship with parts of the city bordering on the site to create landscapes that many people can share. Cities like Tokyo today possess few standards of urban form.

Architects are required to create new landscapes in an urban environment full of heterogeneous elements. The challenge is the same whether the project in question is a single building or a complex of buildings: the creation of topos in the city through the medium of landscape.

Looking back, I believe that the process that led from Hillside Terrace's first phase to the sixth phase suggests not only the changes in our notion of public space and the evolution of modernism, but also what I would call "the landscape of time."

The singular sense of place that people strolling among the various buildings and outdoor spaces of Hillside Terrace feel is no accident. It is the result of a deliberate design approach that has created continuous unfolding sequences of spaces and views, taking advantage of the site's natural topography and, indeed, enhancing it with subtle shifts in the architectural ground plane.

The various green areas, plazas, sunken gardens, exterior stairs, sidewalks, and transparent entrance halls are interconnected by views to one another, giving an impression of substantial depth and extent across the site.

One does not physically experience urban space by simply gazing at buildings or looking at them from above — space is experienced only through sequential movement. Like music, movement in space can be a source of elemental joy, something to which one can give oneself up entirely.

At Hillside Terrace, long views pass through multiple spatial boundaries created by topography, stairs, roads, trees, and low walls. Several possible loops are offered for passage through the site and back to the street, and glimpses of greenery seen around the corner are just as important as fully transparent views for suggesting a path.

Although their architectural expression has varied in response to the times, the buildings of phases one through six share a consistent scale of massing, using a combination of staggered, cubical volumes, generally one and two stories tall, with apartment blocks frequently lifted above street level on transparent and/or recessed ground-floor volumes.

Several unifying spatial elements, such as corner entrances and interior stairs echoing exterior topography, are repeated in different guises to create a sense of continuous townscape while allowing localized variations.

Within such an evolving framework, I have viewed each individual building design from the perspective of its urban presence and meaning — aiming to discover in this process a modern language for the creation of group form.

source: www.architectureweek.com

other links:
Maki and associates
www.hillsideterrace.com

TEMA HIMA TEN

From April 27, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT will present a new exhibition "TEMA HIMA: the Art of Living in Tohoku." It is a follow-up to last July's special program "THE SPIRIT OF TOHOKU: 'CLOTHING' BY ISSEY MIYAKE" held in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake. This exhibition will focus on the "foods and living spaces" of the Tohoku region as seen through the eyes of graphic designer Taku Satoh and product designer Naoto Fukasawa, two of the three directors of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT (Issey Miyake is the third).
"Time," a concept that is often ignored in the modern pursuit for efficiency, is a value that still lives on with the making things of the Tohoku region. The people toil steadily as they wait for the long hard winters to pass. They live humble lives, close to nature harvesting and preparing their materials with the changing seasons. The process of "TEMA (effort)" and "HIMA (time)" is one worthy of attention particularly in the context of design for the future. How can we learn from the distinctive character, charm, and above all, philosophy shaped by Tohoku's "TEMA HIMA" of making things and use this as a stepping stone for tomorrow?
To prepare for the exhibition, a team of designers, a food director, a journalist, film artists, and a photographer delved into the rich tradition in the "foods and living spaces" of the six Tohoku prefectures. Farmers who pass on their unique traditions; craftsmen, who breathe life back into handcrafts; workshops with young talents to examine new possibilities for making things... Our encounters with the determined and positive people of Tohoku bore fruit as a single exhibition.
The exhibition will introduce the Tohoku region's unique version of making things, "TEMA HIMA foods and living spaces" throug items of 55 genres as well as all-new footage and photographs. It will feature graphics designed by Taku Satoh and a space designed by Naoto Fukasawa. The goal will be to identify keys to the future of design by looking into the wealth of wisdom and creative ingenuity within the collective culture and spirit of the people of Tohoku.

source : 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT

Escaping to Kyoto

Serizawa Keisuke
1895 - 1984. Textile designer and dyer. Another champion of the Mingei movement, and a pioneer in stencil dyeing, who joined the Mingei Movement after reading a paper by Yanagi in 1925. Designated a Living National Treasure in 1956. His work drew much inspiration from the "bingata" dyeing process of Okinawa.   

source : Mingei kan, Tokyo

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Cesium exceeding new limit detected in 51 food items in nine prefectures

Kyood

Radioactive cesium was detected in 51 food products from nine prefectures in excess of a new government-set limit in the first month since it was introduced April 1, according to data released by the health ministry Tuesday.

The limit was exceeded in 337 cases, or 2.4 percent of 13,867 food samples examined by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Cesium exceeding the previous allowable limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram was detected in 55 cases, while the new limit of 100 becquerels was exceeded in 282 cases.

By prefecture, there were 142 cases in Fukushima, 69 in Tochigi, 41 in Ibaraki, 35 in Iwate, 32 in Miyagi, 13 in Chiba, two each in Yamagata and Gunma, and one in Kanagawa.

Mushrooms and other agricultural products containing cesium in excess of the tougher limit were involved in 178 cases, while 156 cases pertained to fishery products such as flat fish and bass. In addition, two cases involved black bear meat and one case fried "moroko" fresh water fish.

source : The Japan Times Online

Fukushima Update

 

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Urgent Request to Prime Minister Noda

May 1, 2012

To:  Yoshihiko Noda, Prime Minister of Japan

An Urgent Request on UN Intervention on Stabilization of the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel

Recently, former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel, stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire.

source : Fukushima Update