Shiro Kuramata
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Shiro Kuramata (, 29 November 1934 – 1 February 1991) is one of Japan's most important
designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...
s of the 20th century.


Biography

Kuramata was born in 1934. He was part of a generation of Japanese creatives born just before the outbreak of Second World War, who are considered to have transformed the way Japan was viewed by the outside world. This generation included Kuramata's friends and collaborators who were famous members of the Japanese design and architecture circle at the time, including Issey Miyake, Yokoo Tadanori,
Isozaki Arata Arata Isozaki (磯崎 新, ''Isozaki Arata''; 23 July 1931 – 28 December 2022) was a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita, Ōita, Ōita. He was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize i ...
, and
Tadao Ando is a self-taught Japanese autodidact architect known for his unique integration of architecture and landscape. Architectural historian Francesco Dal Co described his work as an example of " critical regionalism". Ando received the prestigious ...
. Kuramata studied architecture at the Tokyo Technical College before 1953 and was trained as a cabinet maker at the Kuwasawa Institute of Design in Tokyo in 1954, after which he worked for multiple companies such as the furniture producer Teikoku. In 1965, he established Kuramata Design Office in Tokyo and in 1981 received the Japanese Cultural Prize for design. From the mid‑1960s onwards, Kuramata began exploring materials and forms through his unique designs. His work merged popular culture, Japanese aesthetic concepts, and the Western avant‑garde. In 1981 Kuramata was invited by Ettore Sottsass to be a founding member of the Italian design collaborative Memphis Group. In 1990 the French government awarded Kuramata the distinguished
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...
in recognition of his outstanding contribution to art and design.


Works

Kuramata was mainly known for his use of industrial materials such as wire steel mesh and
plexiglass Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bran ...
to create architectural interiors and
furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...
. Revolutionary pieces such as the "How High the Moon" chair (1986)] reflect the emerging dynamism and maturing creativity of postwar
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, or his
Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is also known as . The origin of ikebana can be traced back to the ancient Japanese custom of erecting Evergreen, evergreen trees and decorating them with flowers as yorishiro () to invite the go ...
, lead crystal free hand blown vase, realized by the Vilca from
Colle di Val d'Elsa Colle di Val d'Elsa or Colle Val d'Elsa is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Siena, Tuscany. It has a population of c. 21,600 . Its name means "Hill of Elsa Valley", where Elsa (river), Elsa is the name of the river which crosses it and Val ...
(
province of Siena The province of Siena (, ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Siena. It has 259,826 inhabitants. Geography The province is divided into seven historical areas: * Alta Val d'Elsa * Chian ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
), an example of fusion between oriental and occidental cultures. Kuramata's "Miss Blanche" chair from 1988 is one of his most iconic works, named after the central female character in Tennessee Williams's drama ''
A Streetcar Named Desire ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of pe ...
'' and inspired by corsage worn by
Vivien Leigh Vivien Leigh ( ; born Vivian Mary Hartley; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. After completing her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progress ...
in the
film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...
. As reference to the dreamlike world of illusion in which Blanche lives, the roses were poured by hand into a mold with liquid acrylic resin. The appearance of transparency and airiness contrasts sharply to the fact that the chair weighs at seventy kilos, as a result of the acrylic glass. An edition of this chair was sold at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
for
GBP Sterling (symbol: £; currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word '' pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency general ...
46,000.00 (
USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...
86,000.00) in October 1997, lot 108. A "How High the Moon" two seater was sold for GBP 12,650.00 (US$24,000.00) at
Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought t ...
London in May 1998. This ranks Kuramata amongst the most desirable of artists/designers of the 20th century. Kuramata's many works can be found in the permanent collections of museums around the world, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in New York, and
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
. Kuramata's architecture and interior designs are less well known as there are few remaining examples. Some of his most visually striking interiors were designed for Issey Miyake's boutique shops. He designed multiple sushi restaurants in Tokyo. One of these, the Kiyomoto Sushi Bar, was collected in its entirety by British collector Richard Schlagman. It now sits in the collection of M+ in Hong Kong.


Bibliography

* Seki, Yasuko. ''Kuramata Shiro Ettore Sottsass''. Tokyo: 21_21 Design Sight, 2010. , * Kuramata, Shiro. ''Shiro Kuramata 1934-1991''. Tokyo: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996. * Sudjic, Deyan. ''Shiro Kuramata''. London; New York, NY: Phaidon, 2013. , * Picchi, Francesca, and Todd Eberle with essays by Tadao Ando, John Pawson and Issey Miyake. ''Kuramata's Tokyo''. Domus, no. 858, April 2003.


Sources


Exhibition information
from the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
.
Shiro Kuramata
at "Paul Hughes Fine Arts".


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuramata, Shiro Japanese furniture designers Japanese interior designers 1934 births 1991 deaths Recipients of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres