Lost In Translation

Black Monolith

There is some cool design going on in Tokyo and here's a good example of it in my old funky neighborhood, Harajuku, from The Japan Times:

COUNTER CULTURE HHSTYLE.COM/CASA

Black monolith rises in Harajuku
By MARTIN WEBB

Tokyo is famed for its haphazard layout, with tatty old two-story structures nestling up against ultra-modern constructions, and areas seemingly designated for one type of business that are punctuated by anomalous residential or industrial premises.

hhstyle.com/casa's awe-inspiring edifice dominates its low-key surroundings on Harajuku's famed fashion drag Cat Street.

Interior-design product retailer hhstyle.com's glass-and-steel flagship store is a case in point. It occupies a prime spot on Harajuku's Cat Street, the spiritual home of Tokyo's street-fashion subculture, and is surrounded by ramshackle shops peddling punkish clothes to supposedly angst-ridden teens -- few of whom could afford most of the stuff being sold by hhstyle.com.

As one of the first "clicks and mortar" online/physical combination retailers in Japan, hhstyle.com has reaped the rewards of a surge in Internet use and an "interior boom" since it was established five years ago. Although a significant portion of sales come from its catalog and Internet divisions, its physical manifestation has long since drawn design enthusiasts into the heart of this otherwise apparel-oriented district.

In April, though, this odd juxtapositioning rose to a whole new level of glaring incongruity, with the unveiling of hhstyle/casa next to its existing store. A mammoth Tadao Ando-designed stealth bomber-style black box, it stands in stark contrast to its neighbors in terms of surface texture, scale, color and contents.

Click here to read the rest.

Funky Chairs

This light chair and the silver chair below are recent additions at Cafe Pause, a cafe where I usually have my Japanese lessons in Ikebukuro, and I thought they were pretty cool designs, but I don't want to have to sit on them.

Ando Rejects The Cult Of The Architect

There was an intersting article on Tadao Ando, one of my favorite contemporary architects (the others being Rem Koolhaus, Frank O. Gehry, and Norman Foster), in The Daily Yomiuri. Here's an inspirational quote:

"Life is full of distractions that threaten to sap your passion," Ando goes on. "There are ups and downs in your life. If you work hard only when things go right. Or you don't work hard when things go wrong. That's no good. Whether things go right or not, you should maintain your pace and continually try to get better."

Designs For Life

There was an interesting interview in The Japan Times today about British deisgner Sir Terence Conran, the man behind the Nissan Cube. He has an interesting take on design:

"My definition of intelligent design is 98 percent common sense and 2 percent aesthetics.

You can design something that works very well and is perfectly good. That glass [he picks up a drinking glass from a table], for instance: Perfectly nice glass, nothing wrong with it, works well, cheaply produced. But it doesn't give you that extra 2 percent. It hasn't got that magic ingredient in it that makes you say, "Ah, that is a very beautiful glass."

A really good designer would be able to take this glass and make something about it that makes you say, "Ah, that's a really lovely glass." Do you see? I mean, a small twist that just can take a perfectly ordinary object that's full of common sense and just make it special."

He also has a store in the Marunouchi Building near Tokyo station, of which most items are out of my price range.

Tokyo Designer's Week: Arflex & B&B Italia

It was the kick off of Tokyo Designer's Week and someone told me about this event at Arflex in Ebisu, a home furnishing design store. It was a very chic event with a jazz band, free orderves, and free drinks sponsored by Hennessy. I'm not a big cognac drinker, but, hey, if it's free I'll have a couple half dozen or so. There were lots of beautiful people and some pretty cool furnishings like the chandelier above and the table below with the candle holder and incense burner.

The party seemed to be co-hosted by another home furnishing design store next door, B&B Italia. I found their collection a bit more cutting edge and modern looking. But none of it seems all that functional or comfortable, but it looks cool.
And that counts for a lot.

Seattle's Koolhaas Library

I'm excited to see the new downtown library in Seattle up close next time I visit. This is what Herbert Muschamp of the NY Times has to say:

The Library That Puts on Fishnets and Hits the Disco
By HERBERT MUSCHAMP

Published: May 16, 2004

AT a dark hour, Seattle's new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon. If an American city can erect a civic project as brave as this one, the sun hasn't set on the West. In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review. I could go on piling up superlatives like cars in a multiple collision, but take my word: there's going to be a whole lot of rubbernecking going on.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Cube

It's funny I read about this car on Jean's blog, then I went outside and immediately saw one dive by. The next day coming home I saw another. Apparently the design was inspired by a refrigerator.