Tokujin Yoshioka's Water Block benches at Musee d'Orsay - Paris

Photographs courtesy of Tokujin Yoshioka

Musee d'Orsay, Paris, reopened its renovated spaces on October 20th 2011.

Tokujin Yoshioka was invited to participate in the renovation project of the Impressionist gallery in the Musée d’Orsay.

In the rooms on the 5th floor, together with master works of Manet, Degas, Monet, Cézanne, and Renoir,
the seats provided for the visitors are also works of art: the Water Block benches, created by Japanese artist/designer Tokujin Yoshioka.
His Water Block is designed as a block of water, a genuine sculpture that takes its dynamic form from nature itself. The delicate rippling of the surface and its transparency create a poetic atmosphere, similar to that created by the play of light on water.

Gearing up for the Salone del Mobile: Moroso

DZINE is looking forward to the introduction of the Moon Chair designed by Tokujin Yoshioka.

Moroso expects perfectionism and simplicity from this talented designer, and he gives Moon an implicit elegance of sparseness. The underlying base of last year’s Memory chair is a basic shell that is the starting point for Moon. The originality of Moon lies in its relationship with light which it absorbs and diffuses. It will be presented in roto-molded polyethylene with and without lacquer and as fabric upholstered polyurethane.

"MOON is the chair inspired by the beauty of the light and shadow inherent in the moon. The moonlight is ephemeral light which is born and fades away momentarily. It is the finest expression of the universe," says Tokujin Yoshioka.

Tokujin Yoshioka in Dwell Magazine

Tokujin Yoshioka is featured in Dwell Magazines Q&A section of the March 2011 issue. 

See article below:

Two Million plastic drinking straws fill an exhibition space like haystacks of spun silk; a chair is "grown" from crystals in a transparent tank-Tokujin Yoshioka's work is characterized by a nod to the ethereal.  After learning the trade from legendary industrial designer Shiro Kuramata and fashion icon Issey Miyake, the softspoken Japanese designer established his own studio in 2000.  From products with Moroso and Swarovski, to retail spaces for Camper, to challenging architectural projects, Yoshioka's emphasis on the experience of design allows his "experiments" to truly transcend corporeal limitations.

Why design?  I liked drawing when I was a little boy.  When I was six years old, my father told me that there is an occupation called "designer," and I made up my mind to become one.

What is your process?  I always ask myself objective questions: Is this idea worth creating? Will the result make people happy?

Is there a piece that typifies your approach?  I still remember the day I presented Honey-Pop at Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in 2002.  As people saw a layered paper opening up and turning into a chair, a cheer arose in the space.  At that moment I realized that I could communicate with people all over the globe through my design.



Does the world feel like it's getting smaller or larger?  Today cities are so closely connected.  I believe this has led-and will continue to lead-us to respect and enjoy the characteristics of each region, rather than blending them together.  The uniqueness of cultures will always be stimulating the world of design.

How has your work evolved?  On every project, I try to create something that has never existed, something that could amaze people.  Each time I have designed something that excites me the most.

Where is your favorite place to design?  I prefer to work where I can experiment.  During the past 20 years in Tokyp, I have formed relationships with great researchers and technologists, which have been important for me to create new ideas that reverse common sense.

If you could design anything at all, what would it be?  When I visited Henri Matisse's Chapel of the Rosary I had a striking inspiration, a part of which I presented at my solo exhibition, Tokujin Yoshioka SPECTRUM, in Seoul, Korea, in May 2010.  Rainbow Church is a nine-meter high stained-glass structure made with 500 crystal prisms.  I would like to build an entire church that further expresses this contrast of historic and futuristic beauty, making us feel the light using all our senses.



How has design developed since you began working?  We are at a moment of significant change today, a shift from creating shapes and constructing sensations.  The challenge is the pursuit of these new experiences, like a television in the future that can send us scent through the screen.

Can you characterize Japanese design?  People generally say Japanese aesthetics are poetic, yet I do not think we can define it like that.  Cultures grow, change, and evolve like living creatures; they cannot be defined, which is what makes them beautiful.

Tokujin Yoshioka's latest project "Snow"

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka is presenting his latest work "Snow" at the “Sensing Nature” exhibit at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. The show is on display until early November.

“Snow” is a 50’ wide tank with hundreds of pounds of feathers flying around. The idea evolved from a smaller exhibit Tokujin did in 1997 for Issey Miyake with similar materials. Here is some information from Tokujin about his installation:

“In recent years, I have been studying the essence that human beings would sense. It is neither arranging nor minimizing the forms, but integrating the phenomena and the low of the nature into the design, and see how it would affect and inspire ourselves. Because I believe there is a hint for the future somewhere in-between the essence of the design and the nature, I would like to pursue designing works with this aspect. The Snow is a 15-meter-wide dynamic installation. Seeing the hundreds kilograms of light feather blown all over and falling down slowly, the memory of the snowscape would lie within people’s heart would be bubbled up. This work would show unimaginable beauty by capturing the irregular movement of the nature. This is designed after the installation in 1997 that expressed the “snow” by the concept of the color “white”. The material is feather, which I believe is the lightest material of the present day. The snowscape created with the feather would be more like the memory of snow lying with people rather than the actual snow. The theme of the exhibition is to rethink the Japanese perception of nature, which is to question how the unconscious power to sense the nature and the value of nature in Japan would affect the contemporary art and design. I do not really know about the value of nature in Japan, but what I would like to do is not to reproduce the nature but to know how human senses function when experiencing nature. The most beautiful things I believe in this world is what is irreproducible, accidentally born, and disorder that cannot be understood by the theory. I believe the nature is the ultimate beauty in this world. The sunlight, soft breeze, and the harmony that leaves create, the variety of the essence in the nature touches our emotions. I intend not to reproduce them, but to pick the element that inspires our heart and integrate it into the design.”

 

Photos & Interview via Dezeen