Drawings, Soshun, chair 早春（椅子）繪圖

Well connected with Italian manufacturers after spending the early part of his career in Italy, Umeda Masanori designed this stool as part of the larger Flower collection for the company Edra. Its body unites seat and backrest in a single form, padded with polyurethane foam and upholstered in soft velvet. The ‘petals’ are delineated by thin strips of metal, connecting the seat visually to the steel base, which is set at an angle calculated to balance the sitter’s weight. The stool’s name complements its blossoming form: soshun means ‘early spring’ in Japanese.



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 has 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.