Things Themselves

Being a product design fan and having lived in Japan for some time have instilled in me a deep appreciation for the work of Naoto Fukasawa.

We have the toaster (pictured), kettle and rice cooker that he designed for MUJI in our kitchen. And piles of his books.

Currently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has dedicated one of its galleries to a retrospective of Fukasawa's work.

The designs are shown in the context of his process and thinking - from concept sketches to manufactured goods.

Who is the audience for this exhibition?

First, this exhibition is for design otakus. It is for people who love the spare product designs coming out of Japan.

But it also works to attract new visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In the past, the museum has relied on its permanent collection of early American painters (Charles Wilson Peale, Thomas Eakins) and 20th century Europeans (Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec) to bring in visitors.

Now with the Barnes Collection located competitively nearby and with public taste widening, there seems to be a significant audience expansion dimension to this.

How did they deliver it?

This is the first major solo presentation of Fukasawa’s work at a U.S. museum.

It was organized through the 2024 Collab Design Excellence Awards competition.

Collab is a group that supports modern and contemporary design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The museum’s curatorial staff produced the exhibition and related materials.

In addition to support from Collab, several endowments and supporters stepped up to underwrite the show.

You an learn more here Naoto Fukasawa Things in Themselves.

Endnote:

Some of Fukasawa’s thoughts about design like "Super Normal" and "Without Thought" have become so widely accepted that it's interesting to see them come back to their source. There was no printed guide to take home, so here are a few re-types from the exhibition walls:

Super Normal

The paradox of "super normal" is rooted in Fukasawa's friendship and collaboration with Jasper Morrison (born 1959). Both designers have a longstanding interest in "anonymous" design - referring to the many useful things in the world that perform their functions almost invisibly, without a high-profile designer's self-expression. Finding simple beauty in the straightforward utility of such objects and seeking out work by contemporary designers that showed a similar spirit of modesty and usefulness, Fukasawa and Morrison mounted an exhibition in 2006 at Axis Gallery in Tokyo that embraced the idea of "normalness," accompanied by a publication that offered a manifesto for the same type of self-effacing design. This ethos of humility and quiet functionality continues to inform much of Fukasawa's work.

Without Thought

With his deep experience as a design consultant, Fukasawa sees people's unconscious behaviors - leaning against a railing, reaching for a phone, resting an umbrella against a wall - as a vital source for inspiration. His close attention to daily habits and involuntary gestures, and how these patterns affect our environments, underpins the philosophy he calls "design without thought". His approach strives to create functional items that can be used intuitively, with as little instruction or conscious effort as possible. This has been long standing goal for designers in the realm of complex objects like consumer electronics, but Fukasawa argues that even for categories of simple things, designers can find surprising insight in careful observation of everyday human interactions.

Toaster image courtesy of NAOTO FUKASAWA DESIGN.