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East Galleries, 216
Tanabe Reiko 田邊麗子
Tendo Co., Ltd. 天童木工株式會社
Murai Stool 村井凳
1961
Designed by Tanabe (née Murai) Reiko, the Murai Stool is an icon of mid-century Japanese design. In 1961, Tanabe’s stool won the first competition held by Tendo Mokko, a highly influential furniture company established by woodworkers in northern Japan in 1940. The lightweight stool is made of moulded teak-laminated plywood. Tanabe’s design displays a refined style, efficient production, and technical skill: three identical pieces are bent and glued together, joined at the seams at the base and the top. The wooden material adds warmth and a natural quality to the minimalist aesthetic, and the geometry creates a satisfying balance between the positive forms and negative voids. The stool’s multiple functions, as a seat or a table, for example, are valuable in the context of Japan’s domestic interiors, where space can be limited. The stool is held in numerous museum collections and remains in production today, a testament to its elegant design and mass appeal.
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