People | 20 QUESTIONS Sep 21, 2019
Maurice Eric Zacher: Designs on Japan
by Mio Yamada
Japanologist and product designer Zacher on Japanese design, gadgets and university scholarships.
Style & Design | ON: DESIGN Apr 28, 2019
by Mio Yamada
Now that the flurry of activity that surrounds the annual Salone del Mobile has died down, this month's On: Design takes a look at a few of the interiors fair's Japanese prizewinning ideas and new product debuts.
Style & Design Feb 12, 2019
Plastic fantastic: Examining the obsession over Japan's soft vinyl toys
by Dan Orlowitz
It's a cold afternoon in mid-January and, inside a factory operated by Maruyama Toys in a quiet residential area in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, Cory Privitera is making sofubi (soft vinyl toys). In a cramped workspace surrounded by machinery and long sinks, the 33-year-old begins by ...
Art Dec 12, 2018
In 2018, art came via many anniversaries in Japan
by John L. Tran
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 ...
Style & Design Dec 12, 2018
Shared spaces, locally produced goods and everyday objects
by Mio Yamada
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' — ...
People | 20 QUESTIONS Aug 11, 2018
Designer Linda Polgar gives vintage textiles a new lease of life
by Claire Williamson
Longtime Tokyo resident on choosing fabric, fashion designers and surviving Japanese summer.
Lifestyle Jun 9, 2018
Takaoka crafts a new tourism industry
by Mio Yamada
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 ...
Style & Design Mar 25, 2018
Issey Miyake finds its Kyoto home
by Mio Yamada
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.
Style & Design | ON: DESIGN Dec 3, 2017
It's time to stop blocking color
by Mio Yamada
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?
People | WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN? Nov 11, 2017
Light designer creates European ambience
by Kathryn Wortley
From a young age, Stuttgart-born Megumi Ito always felt "a bit different" from people in her seaside home of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. ...
Lifestyle Aug 13, 2017
Reconstructing the Japanese house
by John L. Tran
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 ...
People | WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN? Jul 15, 2017
Designer Yosuke Ushigome finds solutions to culture shock in English and humor
by J.J. O'Donoghue
How do you solve a geopolitical problem like Kim Jong Un? Containment? Embargoes? Propaganda? Regime change? Synchronized baseball?