NEWSWORTHY
In 2018, art came via many anniversaries in Japan
This year saw a lot of anniversaries in Japan. It was 1868 when Crown Prince Mutsuhito became the Emperor Meiji, the official policy of national isolation ended and the country was set on a course to become a modern industrialized nation-state. This birthday seems ...
Shared spaces, locally produced goods and everyday objects
Making physical connections with people, whether via large-scale events and spaces or design concepts, and a continued celebration of traditional crafts, appeared to be a key direction for design in Japan this year. "2018 was the year Japan embraced the idea of 'shared space' — ...
Designer Linda Polgar gives vintage textiles a new lease of life
Longtime Tokyo resident on choosing fabric, fashion designers and surviving Japanese summer.
Takaoka crafts a new tourism industry
In the entrance of Nousaku in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, a group of schoolchildren skip by and point excitedly at an eclectic display of hundreds of brightly colored objects. Other visitors, meanwhile, look down in wonder toward the concrete floor, where a huge golden silhouette ...
U.S. federal court jury orders Samsung to pay Apple $533 million for copying iPhone design
A federal court jury on Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $533 million or copying iPhone design features in a patent case dating back seven years. Jurors tacked on an additional $5 million in damages for a pair of patented functions. The award appeared to ...
Issey Miyake finds its Kyoto home
With its tiered roof, latticed exterior and exposed beams, the new Issey Miyake Kyoto flagship is more than just a store; it's a celebration of one of Kyoto's best-known traditional structures — the machiya.
It's time to stop blocking color
Minimalist interiors have been a growing trend for many years now, primarily dominated by a monochromatic palette of white. But who says we need to abandon color to live a de-cluttered life?
Light designer creates European ambience
From a young age, Stuttgart-born Megumi Ito always felt "a bit different" from people in her seaside home of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Both her father and grandfather worked in Europe as architects, and the entire family were great fans of the region's various styles and ...
Reconstructing the Japanese house
After very successful runs in Rome and London, "The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945," an exhibition of maquettes, photographs, plans and drawings, is now in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. For providing an extensive look at varied and eclectic forms that ...
Designer Yosuke Ushigome finds solutions to culture shock in English and humor
How do you solve a geopolitical problem like Kim Jong Un? Containment? Embargoes? Propaganda? Regime change? Synchronized baseball?
Designer Yuri Suzuki chases his dreams through sound
As a boy in the 1980s, Yuri Suzuki fell under the spell of video games and his father's record collection. The family home was in bustling Shibuya Ward, near the border with Shinjuku, and the influence of global cultures within its walls was strong. ...
My 4-year-old daughter's eyes light up when she spies something sitting on the work table. Unlike her normal playtime preferences, it is not a rainbow-haired unicorn, felt tip pens or a plastic doll that has caught her attention — it's an industrial looking electric ...
