Naoto Fukasawa, a renowned Japanese designer and one of the most influential thinkers in his field, presented his new work for Maruni – the Tako chair, which means “octopus”. After the press conference, Naoto Fukasawa shared his thoughts on the concept of minimalism, and its role in saving the planet and everyday life.
The concept of Minimalism
Minimalism is not just a concept, not one concept or thing that you can understand something by looking at it. This whole space is the whole atmosphere that surrounds us. All elements in such an environment are ideally suited to each other, which creates a feeling of completeness, completeness. This is absolutely necessary for understanding the fundamental basis of minimalism.
Minimalism does not mean an obvious movement toward simplicity and the elimination of excess. A minimalist does everything the way it should be – understanding the essence of the thing and the process. Minimalism is the perfect match of everything with everything when one thing complements and supports another while remaining independent. It is an environment perfectly harmonized and balanced.
Minimalism is not just about achieving some particular form or structure. A perfect match – this is minimalism. Mies van der Rohe, artist Anthony Gormley, and sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Most important
If I had to name a few things that I can’t live without, they are family, friends, nature, music, light, coffee, and my smartphone. Trees and greenery are vital to me: I chose my house in such a way that I could admire nature from every window. I would not say that during the last months, it was somehow difficult to design.
For me, this process is difficult only in one case – if the people for whom I create the project do not feel the essence of the design and we speak different languages. In this case, nothing will work. It is important to find like-minded people who understand beauty in the same way as you do.
About Minimalism and Ecology
Minimalism in the context of ecology means a global understanding of one thing: the territory and place on earth that we already have is enough. No need to strive to increase it. To strive for expansion in all its manifestations is superfluous. We need to stop this in the direction of doing more and more. Man is a tiny creature. And we, as a species, must strive for the correct size of our life relative to the planet. If we find the right scale, the size of our life on the planet, we will be happy.
About emotional design
A man-made object is usually intuitively perceived by us as humanistic. A person endows a thing with a special feeling and size, so our communication with things occurs naturally. The object of us has a certain degree, of individuality. Just as we admire the sharpness of mind in our friends, similarly we accept certain intellectual qualities of objects.
About the creation of the Tako chair
When Maruni approached me two years ago with a request to create a new chair that would become a symbol of the company, I immediately said that I would like it to be a thing close to organic design. The new Tako chair, which means “octopus” in translation, has almost no straight lines – and this meant certain difficulties for production.
However, we have found a way to produce this model industrially. Prototypes were made completely by hand, then they were transferred to industrial production with the help of 3D machines, and at the last stage, artisans polished them again by hand, to perfection. This is in good agreement with the concept of the company, whose motto is “industrial craft”.
I wanted this time to create a thing that would look like a sculpture. Another important feature of Tako design is “friendliness”, an invitation to communication.
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