Tokujin Yoshioka Design

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Tokujin Yoshioka was born in Japan in 1967. He is one of the most important Japanese designers working today, and despite his age he has already worked in collaboration with renowned individuals such as Issey Miyake and Ross Lovegrove. Famed for his technically excellent work and superb appreciation of light as a design material, he uses fibre optics, stunning light installations and reflective-transparent materials in a way that leaves the observer with the impression that the future has arrived. One of his most famous projects so far is the design for the Issey Miyake shop in Tokyo, which was realized with transparent glass and acrylic furniture. His grand-scale style of design has recently brought him recognition on the international stage, and he has won a host of accolades, including the Award of Excellence from the I.D. Annual Design Review for two years running (2000 - 2001). Showing particular interest in new materials and technologies, his work ranges from the amazing Honey Pop chair, which is constructed solely through honeycomb sheets of paper, to a form of architecture based on an appropriating and painstaking act of relocation. His installations, such as that commissioned for the Tokyo Robot Meme exhibition, or the A-POC show at the Vitra Design Museum in Berlin, display an acutely-developed and playful aesthetic with a futuristic touch. Other projects include his feat of arranging specially-designed glass lenses to create the optical illusion called the Roppongi Think Zone - a reflective, cubic building erected on a Tokyo high street - which floats a few inches from the ground. At present he is working on a new furniture collection for Driade. This book will present his entire body of work through beautiful and abstract photographs showing Yoshioka's finished designs, accompanied by sketches, drawings and snapshot images showing the processes at work behind his designs to help to explain his complex technological approach. There will be an introduction by Issey Miyake and a main survey of Yoshioka's work to date by the writer, curator and critic, Nyu Niimi. This will be followed by four chapters, on Light, Transparency, Motion and Material, each beginning with an essay and looking at key Yoshioka designs in more detail. Essays are contributed by four key designers or clients, Ross Lovegrove, Ingo Maurer, Kozo Fujimoto and Paola Antonelli.