Sori Yanagi / Tendo Co. Ltd. / Japanese Crafts "Butterfly" Stool c.1956
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Sori Yanagi / Tendo Co. Ltd. / Japanese Crafts “Butterfly” Stool c.1956
Sori Yanagi (1915-2012), Japan
Tendo Co. Ltd., Japan
Butterfly stool, 1956.
Bleached rosewood veneer on plywood with brass.
H: 15” x W: 16 ½” x D: 12”
Price: $4,900
This model can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The Japanese designer Sori Yanagi is best known for his 1956 Butterfly Stool. It is both elegant and utterly simple: two curved pieces of molded plywood are held together through compression and tension by a single brass rod. The stool’s graceful shape recalls a butterfly’s wings, and has also been compared to the form of torii, the traditional Shinto shrine gates. He loved traditional Japanese crafts and was dedicated to the modernist principles of simplicity, practicality and tactility that are associated with Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, and Le Corbusier.”
Yanagi, who studied architecture and art at Tokyo’s Academy of Fine Art, was inspired by the work of Le Corbusier and by the designer Charlotte Perriand, with whom he worked in the early 1940s, while she was in Tokyo as the arts and crafts adviser to the Japanese Board of Trade. But perhaps the most indelible influence on Yanagi was that of his father, Soetsu Yanagi, who led the “mingei” movement, which celebrated Japanese folk craft and the beauty of everyday objects, and who founded the Nihon Mingeikan (or Japanese Folk Crafts Museum) in Tokyo. Yanagi fils, who was named director of the museum in 1977, succinctly described his design aesthetic in a 2002 interview in The Japan Times: “I try to create things that we human beings feel are useful in our daily lives. During the process, beauty is born naturally.” Throughout his life, Sori Yanagi was inspired by what he called “anonymous design” — he cited the Jeep and a baseball glove as two examples — and he in turn inspired younger designers, like Naoto Fukasawa, Tom Dixon and Jasper Morrison.
Illustrated: Domestic Animals: The Neoprimative Style Andrea and Nicoletta Branzi, (London, 1987) n.p.; Designed by Architects in the 1980s, Julie Capella and Quim Larrea, Barcelona, 1987, p. 37; Anne Bony, Paris Les années 80, 1995, p. 520; Charlotte and Peter Fiell, 1000 Chairs, Cologne, 2000, p. 588
H: 42 3/4″ x W: 19 3/4″ x D: 24″
Price: $19,000
The “Cucus” chair was part of the “Domestic Animals” series
designed in 1985/86 by Andrea Branzi for Zabro.
Andrea Branzi's “Domestic Animals” series was designed in 1985 and 1986 for the Italian firm Zabro. Designs were later also manufactured by Zanotta. Andrea Branzi created “Domestic Animals” in collaboration with Nicoletta Branzi, who produced limited edition art clothing for this series. The “Neoprimitive” style in which this collection has been rendered utilizes natural materials such as sticks to create an object that brings archetypal symbols into the home to produce emotional effects. These objects combine technology and nature and the symbols and codes that these entail demonstrating that “a hybrid love between different creatures is possible.” (Branzi, Domestic Animals, 1987, n.p.) With these objects Branzi aims to “domesticate” technological inventions so as to make them a positive presence in man's life.
“The difference between a domestic animal and a trained (or tamed) one lies in the fact that the latter is the outcome of an unnatural and violent attitude, while the domestic animal establishes the dream of a loving relationship with man.” (Branzi, Domestic Animals, 1987, n.p.)
Andrea Branzi, architect and designer, born in Florence in 1938, where he graduated in 1967, lives and works in Milano. From 1964 to 1974 he was a partner of Archizoom Associati, first vanguard group internationally known, whose projects are preserved at Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione in Parma and at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Since 1967 he works in the fields of industrial and research design, architecture, urban planning, education and cultural promotion.He is Professor at the Third Faculty of Architecture and Industrial Design of Politecnico di Milano.
Marcel Wanders, One Morning They Woke Up, mosaic table/stool 2004
MARCEL WANDERS (1963-) The Netherlands
“One morning they woke up” mosaic occasional table or stool 2004
Gilt and lively colored glass mosaic, fiberglass body
H: 13″ x D: 17″
Price: $18,500
Marcel Wanders (1963) grew up in Boxtel, the Netherlands, and graduated at the School of the Arts Arnhem in 1988 with a cum laude certificate. He is now an independent industrial product designer operating out of Amsterdam where he has his own studio, Marcel Wanders studio. Marcel continues to work on diverse products and projects for Cappellini, Mandarina Duck, Magis, Droog Design and Moooi amongst others. For the latter he is associated as creative director. Marcel also co-operates in other design-related projects, such as the Vitra Summer Workshop where he was project leader for the second time. Also he was a juror for various prizes like the Rotterdam Design Prize (for which his own products were nominated several times) and the Kho Liang Ie prize. He lectured at SFMoMA, Limn the Design Academy and has taught at various design academies in the Netherlands. Marcel won the Rotterdam Design Prize (public prize) for the Knotted Chair, and received several other awards including the George Nelson Award (Interiors magazine) and Alterpoint Design Award 2000. In the 2001, Marcel has been nominated in the category ‘designer of the year’ in WIRED magazine’s 2001 wired rave awards. Designs of Marcel Wanders have been selected for the most important design collections and exhibitions in the world, like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and San Francisco, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Central Museum in Utrecht, and various Droog Design exhibitions. In the book ‘Wanders Wonders, design for a new age’ (1999) which accompanied a solo exhibition in Museum ‘t Kruithuis in Den Bosch, the most important products are shown, from the Knotted Chair to the Shadows lamps and from the Nomad Carpet to the Eggvase. Works of Marcel have been published in all leading design magazines.
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