Isamu Kenmochi (, 1912 - 1971) was a Japanese modernist designer significant in the development of Japanese

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in adva ...

after World War II. Isamu Kenmochi was born on 2 January 1912 in Tokyo. Kenmochi graduated from the Tokyo College of Industrial Arts (, now

Chiba University is a national university in the city of Chiba, Chiba, Chiba, Japan. It offers doctoral degrees in education as part of a coalition with Tokyo Gakugei University, Saitama University, and Yokohama National University. The university was formed in ...

Faculty of Engineering) in 1932. After his graduation, Kenmochi worked at the Industrial Arts Research Institute in Tokyo. Kenmochi met artist and designer

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist, furniture designer and Landscape architecture, landscape architect whose career spanned six decades from the 1920s. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Grah ...

in the summer of 1950 on Noguchi's first trip to Japan. Together, the two developed a number of furniture designs, pioneering the Japanese Modern style which integrated the

material culture Material culture is culture manifested by the Artifact (archaeology), physical objects and architecture of a society. The term is primarily used in archaeology and anthropology, but is also of interest to sociology, geography and history. The fie ...

of Japanese furniture with modernist styles. In 1952, Kenmochi visited the United States, later writing about the visit in the Industrial Arts Research Institute's publication, ''Kogei Nyusu''. Later that year, Kenmochi became a founding member of the Japan Industrial Designers Association. Noguchi Kenmochi Chair

In 1964, Kenmochi's 1958 design for a lounge chair commissioned by the Yamakawa Rattan Company was added to the design collection of the

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

. The design additionally won the G-Mark Prize (Good Design Selection System). Kenmochi died by suicide on 3 June 1971 in

Shinjuku , officially called Shinjuku City, is a special ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world ( Shinjuku Station) as well as the Tokyo Metropol ...

, Tokyo.

References

{{Authority control Japanese furniture designers Japanese industrial designers 1912 births 1971 deaths Designers from Tokyo