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East Galleries, 216
Kidokoro Ubunji 城所右文次
Mitsukoshi Ltd. 三越株式會社
Bamboo Chair 竹椅
1937
Kidokoro Ubunji’s Bamboo Chair is constructed out of laminated plywood and strips of bamboo fastened with brass studs. The form is a curving surface, supported in between two U-shaped sections that join at the top of the backrest. The organic lines and fluid shape reflect and comfortably suit the human body. The seat cantilevers and does not require rear legs, slightly bending with the weight of a person and showcasing the structural properties of wood. The design is based on an armchair by Alvar Aalto from the early 1930s and demonstrates the influence of Scandinavian furniture design. The chair was developed for Mitsukoshi, a department store that played a role in introducing and promoting European modernism in Japan. Aalto’s chair, and Kidokoro’s subsequent version, signalled a crafts-based response to the Bauhaus and International modernist style, using warm, natural materials instead of cold metals. In the 1940s, the French modernist designer Charlotte Perriand exhibited the Bamboo Chair at the Takashimaya department stores in Tokyo and Kyoto and produced furniture models using similar methods. The chair represents a mutual exchange and influence between Western and Japanese modernisms.
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