National SAGA television, model TC-96G樂聲牌「嵯峨」電視機,TC-96G 型
1965
Produced by Japanese manufacturer Panasonic, this black-and-white television conceals its electronic components in a rectangular wooden cabinet, with the screen and controls positioned above a horizontal wooden grille. Panasonic’s designers looked to the traditions of cabinet furniture for the television’s design after studying how Japanese households used their TVs—often, the designers found, with a secondary function as a surface for displaying other objects. While the form, materials, and construction of the SAGA television respond to post-war design influences from the United States and Scandinavia, the object also alludes to the shoin-zukuri style that characterised elite architecture in Japan from the mid-sixteenth to the late nineteenth centuries—thus representing a distinctly Japanese take on mid-century style.
In the years following the Second World War, electronics manufacturers like Panasonic invested heavily in research and development, supported by Japan’s government to compete in an expanding global market for technological goods. At the same time, the social and economic upheavals of the post-war decades prompted some manufacturers and consumers to favour objects that blended modern styles and materials with those of earlier periods. As exemplified by the SAGA television, this design approach softened the newness of modern electronics with familiar forms perceived to be ‘traditional’, easing the integration of technology into the domestic sphere.