Since the awe-inspiring Tokyo Midtown development opened in the Roppongi district in March, well-heeled residents of the Japanese capital have been flocking to its dining outlets, offices and boutiques. Issey Miyake is among the retail tenants of this $3 billion cathedral of commerce—but the leading fashion designer is hoping that shoppers and office workers will also make tracks for an intriguing, sleek structure located in a grassy corner of its 25-acre site.
With a fuselage-gray roof that comes to rest on the ground like giant wingtips, the building has the look of a vast origami stealth bomber. Created by architect Tadao Ando, it is home to 21_21 Design Sight, an ambitious design museum of which Miyake is one of three directors. The others are product designer Naoto Fukasawa and graphics guru Taku Satoh. Their mission is to separate design from the mercantile world of branding, and give it its original, purer meaning: the creation of practical and beautiful objects that improve the quality of life.
“The word design is used very frequently in Japan today,” says Satoh, “but, in most cases, it is merely a means to sell things. In order to rectify that misconnection, we on the design side must do more to communicate what design really is about.”
That he and his partners are seeking to do so within earshot of Tokyo Midtown’s cash registers is something of an irony, as is the fact that the name Miyake is one of the most prominent brands in the field of luxury goods. Its owner, at least, seems undeterred. “I want to make this space alive and to create a vision for the future,” says Miyake. “Our aim is not to sell things or ideas but rather, through our exhibitions, to make people think more within the context of their social and natural environments.”
As its name poetically suggests (“21_21” was devised to convey a visual ability that goes beyond mere 20/20), Design Sight intends to be forward-looking if not avant-garde. Its first exhibition—organized by Fukasawa and running until July 29—involves 30 designers, the majority Japanese, responding to the theme of chocolate (the next show is planned along the theme of water). The results are a toothsome twist on product design and consumer desire. The artist HIMAA has made a chocolate key with a bite mark that turns the lock; the design team of Kouhei Okamoto and Toshitaka Nakamura, professionally known as VINTA, has created a lamp that resembles liquid chocolate. It all appears delightfully surreal, but the serious message to savor, as far as these displays are concerned, is design’s ability to render commonplace things afresh.
Whether the typical Tokyo Midtown shopper will divorce this from design’s role in moving products off shelves is another matter, but Miyake is optimistic, hoping that ordinary Tokyoites will drop in on Design Sight “casually, like visiting a supermarket.” We know what he means, but can’t help wondering if there’s another comparison besides supermarkets and their brightly lit aisles of attention-grabbing packaging, competing for your dollar.
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