New | Hong Kong show celebrates Sori Yanagi, industrial design legend
Centenary exhibition offers insight into the creative universe of man best known for his Butterfly Stool
An exhibition in Hong Kong marking the centenary of the birth of Japan's legendary industrial designer Sori Yanagi has recreated his creative world with a retrospective of his products and designs alongside a life-sized black-and-white photographic installation showing him at work amid a cornucopia of tools, models, books and prototypes.
"We tried to recreate the dynamic atmosphere of the space where Yanagi worked with his team for over 40 years," says local designer and brand consultant Alan Chan, who is hosting the exhibition, The Designer's Heart, in his own in-studio gallery, creating an intriguing studio-inside-a-studio experience.
"We wanted to show the objects as usable designs rather than exhibits so most of the items can be touched and tried out, just as Yanagi experimented in his studio. It provides a unique insight into Yanagi's approach to design as well as his practice of making prototypes by hand, a process that is referred to in Japan as 'think by hand'."
Chan, who travels to Japan regularly and collaborates with Japanese designers on many of his interior design projects, has long been an admirer of Yanagi's synthesis of two seemingly opposite design worlds: Japan's artisanal traditions and modern Western industrial design.
Yanagi's approach was heavily influenced by his father, the aesthetic philosopher Soetsu Yanagi, who established the Japanese crafts museum in Tokyo, amassing an unparalleled collection of traditional crafts from all over the country.