Drawings and photographic material, RAN–Orchid, sofa 蘭花（沙發）繪圖及影像資料

This prototype chair by Umeda Masanori illustrates the Japanese designer’s skill in manipulating the traditional materials and techniques of upholstery to create sculptural forms and highly expressive effects. Umeda shaped each component of the chair—back, seat, and combined arm and leg—with padding to create the abstracted but immediately recognisable form of an orchid flower. Tufting and stitching create additional detail on the seat and backrest, while a single rear leg in chrome-plated steel mimics the flower’s stem. At the tip of each lobe on the arms and back, translucent buttons are sewn, suggesting droplets of dew caught on the ‘petals’. A version of the chair, slightly altered from the original prototype, was produced beginning in 2008 by the Japanese manufacturer Toyo Kitchen Style.



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.