Esoteric Survey

Since 1972, the Yanagi Shop has been located down a small quiet alley in Tokyo

The shop sells new products that were designed by Sori Yanagi (1915-2011)
There are also many vintage nuggets on display, but unfortunately not for sale.

A great old Aalto stool, with a Yanagi pad.
 I really wanted to buy the 1960 Yanagi tape dispenser. They still use it at the shop.
Sori Yanagi's office in 1960

Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center (1967) by Kenzo Tange. This 12 story building was the first realization of Metabolism. Thirteen individual office modules are connected in clusters to a central core.  
Like the Nakagin, the design allows for additional modules to be "plugged in".
Source: Class Connection

The Metabolist idea of the structure growing, reproducing, and transforming in response to the environment has yet to happen for Shizuoka. No modules have been added since it opened in 1967. I'm still optimistic.

I went to Japan again. My first stop was the Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972) by Kisho Kurokawa.  It's located in the Shimbashi/Ginza area of Tokyo.

The 14-story mixed-use residential and office tower has 140 detachable capsules around a central concrete core. The Nakagin was based on Metabolism and exchangeability and was a sustainable architecture prototype. 
"The visions of Kurokawa Kisho, Kikutake Kiyonori, Maki Fumihiko, and other architects who had come under the influence of Tange Kenzo gave birth to an architectural movement that was called 'Metabolism.' The name, taken from the biological concept, came from an image of architecture and cities that shared the ability of living organisms to keep growing, reproducing, and transforming in response to their environments." - Metabolism: The City of The Future, Mori Art Museum

A capsule that was on display at Mori Art Museum's Metabolism Exhibition in 2011 and 2012.
Source: Japan Vision
Source: Atlas of Interi…

Mingei of Japan at the Mingei International Museum
It probably isn't a surprise that the Mingei museum has a fantastic collection of Mingei artifacts. This included a number of recent acquisitions. The exhibit was curated by the museum's director, Rob Sidner. Soetsu Yanagi’s writings are on the walls. He, along with Shoji Hamada and Kawai Kawai Kanjiro, are the fathers of the Japanese Mingei movement. Soetsu is also the father of Sori Yanagi. Here is baby Sori in 1915.
Ceramics by Shoji Hamada
Shoji Hamada
Hamada, Bernard Leach, Soetsu Yanagi, and Marguerite Wildenhain at Black Mountain College, 1952 Source: American Craft Council
Kawai Kanjiro. I went to his house, here.



Kokeshi

Nakashima table and chairs flanked by Sori Yanagi lamps, stool, and teapot.
Sori Yanagi
Mingei of Japan runs until October 2, 2016

Riki Watanabe (1911 – 2013)
After graduating from Tokyo Higher School of Art and Design in wood crafts, Watanabe worked with Bruno Taut, a German architect who had fled to Japan to escape the Nazis. Although he was well versed in the modernist ideals of the Bauhaus, Watanabe wanted to translate them into the Japanese culture. In 1949 he started his own design studio. Watanabe was involved in the formation of many of Japan's important design organizations, including the Japan Industrial Designers Association (1952) and the International Design Committee (1953). Masaru Katsumie, Isamu Kenmochi, Yusaku Kamekura, and Sori Yanagi were fellow founding members of the International Design Committee, which became the Good Design Committee (1959) and later the Japan Design Committee (1963). 
Rope chair, 1952 - "A low-cost item of furniture that struck a balance between Japanese traditions (low-level seating and natural materials) and a contemporary aesthetic."Source: Riki Watanabe: …