I first previewed it a while back, but here’s a better look at the exhibition design by Nendo created for last month’s “Kanazawa World Craft Triennial 2010 Pre-event” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Photos are by the always amazing Daici Ano, pretty much “the” name in architectural photography.
The design for a exhibition of 62 craft objects by 50 artisans at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, in western Japan. The objects’ materials range widely, including glass, wood, ceramics, metal and cloth. A variety of techniques were used in their creation, and they range widely in size. For the exhibition design, then, we chose the opposite strategy. Small mass-produced home-use greenhouses give a sense of order to the space and provide visitors with a flat perspective from which to view the exhibition, allowing the rich variety of the objects to stand out.
The greenhouses are made completely of glass, and each comes with its own shelving and pre-installed wiring for lighting. They are inexpensive, perfect for small budgets, and are easily assembled with only a screwdriver. It took only one day to assemble all 62 of the boxes. They can be broken down and stored after the exhibition. This not only eliminates nearly all waste from the exhibition fixtures, but also allows for possible reuse during the the Kanazawa World Craft Triennale 2010.
Designboom posts a huge round-up of images and products from this year’s edition of DesignTide. Above, Hironao Tsuboi‘s “Sun” sensible time clock.
“Sun” is purposefully minimal except for a small colorful dot — a day begins with sunrise, it ends with sundown. Sunset and sunrise times are dependent on your exact latitude, and longitude coordinates.
Takashi Shinozaki of *studio has an upcoming exhibition at the Living Design Gallery in Shinjuku entitled “A New Domestic Animal Landscape.”
For a long time, human beings coexisted with animals. Today, however, our cities make it difficult to do that. Instead, we find ourselves surrounded by animal characters and toys. This exhibition attempts to take a proactive stance in reappraising these characters and toys as new “domestic animals,” showcasing a new “domestic landscape” featuring hybrid animal toys original furniture prototypes, etc.
The show will run from November 19 until December 1 (closed on Wednesdays).
Just a reminder that the opening party for the “PROTOTYPE 03” exhibition happens tomorrow night (November 12, 19:00-22:00) at Tokyo Midtown Design Hub — for more details see my previous post. You’ll definitely want to catch this.
A few photos from Nendo‘s solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, “Ghost Stories, New Designs from Nendo.” The show runs until January 10.
An exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, featuring four new designs. Long rectangular slashes of windows run around the walls and ceiling of the gallery space we were given. We decided not to build any walls that would keep visitors from enjoying the windows and the changing light that filters into the gallery.
The products, along with samples that convey a sense of the production process sit on pre-existing white stands, surrounded by small, 5mm-diameter white stickers affixed to the floor around them. The stickers provide a gradation effect, as though the stands are melting into the larger space. The overall effect of the installation design is to maintain the space’s specificity, while intensifying the presence of each new work.
I’m sad I had to miss out on the festivities for the launch of the fourth issue of the excellent interior magazine Apartamento here in Tokyo last week. The magazine teamed up with Utrecht — at the NOW IDeA by Utrecht shop — and created a temporary cafe (one of the chef’s for the week was Digiki). TABlog posts a photo report on the event.
I’m very happy to note that the PROTOTYPE exhibition series — originally conceived by Keiji Ashizawa — is back this year for a third edition. “PROTOTYPE 03″ will be held at the Tokyo Midtown Design Hub, November 13-24, with the opening party — which you won’t want to miss, I know I won’t — happening November 12 (19:00-22:00).
An exhibition of prototype works from product designers, furniture designers, architects, and other creatives.This collection of prototypes and in-process design work illustrates the discovery, frustration and serendipity of the design process and highlights how prototypes are used as vehicles for solving problems and generating new ideas.
The list of participants is an absolute who’s who of the new generation bringing life to the current Japanese design scene — visit the exhibition’s official website for the full list, as well as info on what will be shown.
You may recall that earlier this year I posted something about Carl Randall‘s portraits work, and now’s the time to see the result. Carl’s solo exhibition, “Tokyo Portraits,” is on now at BUNKYO ARTS, and runs until November 14. He’ll also be doing a live portrait painting performance — Japanese ink on Japanese paper — on November 7, 13:00-16:00.
Photographer Joji Shimamoto is showing works at Fireking Cafe in Yoyogi Uehara until the end of the month.
The current show at the 21_21 Design Sight is “The Outline: The Unseen Outline of Things,” an exhibition of works by Naoto Fukasawa and photography by Tamotsu Fujii. It runs until January 31.
Created for Kyouei‘s “Rain” exhibition during the Taiwan Design Expo ’09, the Endless Rain Record does just what its name implies: plays the sound of rain endlessly — the grooves on the vinyl form a circle.
A bit late on this — got lost in my “things to post” list — but last month TABlog covered the opening of the new Yuka Contemporary gallery. It’s located in a neighborhood around Waseda University — so just a bike ride away from my house — that used to be known for washi production.
The next exhibition, “Dream Conscious,” is a show curated by Kosuke Tsumura of Monaka, “an experimental unit [...] that explores the potential of fashion outside of clothing” (November 6 to December 12).
Bunpei Yorifuji — he’s the illustrator behind all those Tokyo Metro public service ads — is having his first solo exhibition at gallery @btf, running until October 25. Via Spoon & Tamago.
I haven’t seen it myself — hell, I haven’t seen much of anything over the past three months — but Cheungvogl‘s “Tokyo Reflections” interactive installation on the JR platforms at Tokyo station looks like an interesting one. I found out about it through this post over at Designboom — where you can read more details about the project — but there doesn’t seem to be any mention of when it ends.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
