Tokujin Yoshioka

The complete work of Tokujin Yoshioka, one of the most innovative designers working today. Based in Tokyo, Tokujin Yoshioka has built a career using unconventional materials to create objects and spaces. Often employing paper and glass, as well as unusual elements, such as plastic drinking straws, his studio's work has achieved a cult following among design enthusiasts. Leading design museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, have Yoshioka's work in their permanent collections. He was the recipient of the Designer of the Year Award at Design Miami in 2007. A protégé of both Issey Miyake and the legendary industrial designer Shiro Kuramata, Yoshioka established his own practice in 2000. Working with Miyake for nearly two decades, Yoshioka completed many projects and installations, and shop designs for both a-poc and Issey Miyake. His collaborations have expanded globally, and he now counts brands such as Cartier, Hermès, BMW, and Swarovski as his clients. In creations like the Honey-Pop Chair, the Tokyo-Pop Chair, and the Panna Chair, Yoshioka's designs display a tactility and warmth not often associated with minimalist works. His most recent experiments transcend industrial design, occupying a space between science and art, typified by the Venus chair, where crystals were naturally grown over a fiber form immersed in a glass tank filled with a solution. Designed by Groovisions, the book includes more than three hundred sketches, concept renderings, and photographs. The projects are organized thematically, with an emphasis on materials and process, and show how Yoshioka transforms commonplace items to create objects of tensile strength and sublime beauty.