About the Exhibition

Riki Watanabe (born 1911) is one of the designers who helped lead the postwar Japanese design movement. Since 1950, he has produced furniture and products that represent Japanese modern design. He emerged in the immediate aftermath of the war, when the concept of design had yet to take firm root in Japanese society, with an early and resolute professional conviction.

In the 1930s, Watanabe encountered Modern Design as it is generally understood today in the works and philosophy associated with the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. He pursued forms that were grounded in Japanese life and supported by function. His early work Himo-isu (1952) (Photograph 2), which masterfully integrated the chair, a Western lifestyle element, into the traditionally floor-based Japanese home to clearly express a modern Japanese way of living, and Torii Stool (1956), which rethought the traditional material rattan within a modern design process, have been highly regarded in Japan and abroad as embodiments of Japanese modern design.

Over his long subsequent career, Watanabe undertook numerous comprehensive interior design projects for residences, corporate buildings, and large-scale hotels. He consistently designed from the standpoint of interior space, creating environments in which the objects of daily life take on vitality. Beyond such practices, he played an important role in shaping the Japanese design movement during its early stages through the founding of the Japan Industrial Design Association (JIDA) and the Craft Center Japan, which was dedicated to discovering and promoting handicrafts, and through his many critical writings.

This is the first retrospective exhibition to trace Riki Watanabe’s nearly half-century career through his representative works. Through his designs, where a clear consciousness of function and everyday life, and a rational spirit oriented toward mass production, often inhabit forms approaching the ascetic, the exhibition explores the ideas that took root in Japanese Modern Design.

Hours & Admissions

Location

Art Museum Gallery 4

Date

January 13 – March 5, 2006

Time

10:00–17:00 (Fridays open until 20:00) 
*Last admission is 30 minutes before closing.

Closed

Mondays

Organizer

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

With the assistance of

Seiko Epson Corporation

With the sponsorship of

Seiko Watch Corporation