Drawings and photographic material, Getsuen, sofa 月苑（沙發）繪圖及影像資料

Japanese designer Umeda Masanori’s early sketches for this chair indicate that he was inspired by the Chinese bellflower, which has five tapering petals joined together in a bell shape. Umeda mimicked the flower’s distinctive shape by disguising the chair’s metal frame with foam padding, upholstered in velvet. The result is a sensual interplay between form, colour, and texture, with the velvet simulating downy flower petals; three lines of stitching and button tufts on the seat provide an abstracted representation of a flower’s stamens. Umeda also paid close attention to how the sculptural form would accommodate the human body, and included of a pair of small wheels at its base—a light-hearted but functional aid for moving the chair. This design was part of Umeda’s larger Flower collection for the Italian company Edra, a testament to his ongoing connections with manufacturers in Italy after he worked there in the early part of his career.



Umeda founded his Tokyo design studio in 1980, returning to Japan after working for over a decade with Ettore Sottsass at Olivetti in Italy. Focusing on both product design and commercial interiors, he continued to explore colourful, sculptural forms that can be broadly characterised as postmodernist. Umeda was a participant in the radical Memphis design collective in the early 1980s, and his later work carries with it some of the same expressive spirit, humour, and interest in the symbolic associations of objects.