PROFILE

Description

Description

After graduating from the Department of Architecture of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts), he joined Inoue Kogyo in 1946, a year after the end of the war, where they built the music hall in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, designed by Antonin Raymond. He was then approached by a senior university student and in 1947 joined the office of Junzo Sakakura, an architect who had studied under Le Corbusier.
Under Sakakura's direction, he designed and furnished the residence of the Kabuki actor Koshiro Matsumoto (Hakuo), designed the furniture for the International House of Japan, a much talked about joint project by Sakakura, Kunio Maekawa and Junzo Yoshimura to promote cultural exchange between Japan and other countries, and designed the furniture for the 12th Triennale di Milano, an international design exhibition. He became more and more fascinated by designing furniture, especially chairs. In 1971, after Sakakura had passed away, he left the firm at the age of 50, and the following year he opened the Cho Daisaku Architectural Design Office. After the launch of the "Freedom Chair" system furniture for ITOKI in 1973, he had his hands full with architectural design work and did not design furniture for 20 years. In 1993, at the age of 71, he took part in an exhibition of furniture by the architect Akio Okumura at the AXIS Gallery, which inspired him to resume designing furniture in earnest. While pursuing the three-legged and triangular shapes that he was drawn to for some reason, such as the "Cho Stool", the "Bachi Chair" and the "Triangular Stool", he also redesigned previous pieces of furniture in the pursuit of greater seating comfort.
In his later years, he worked on a wide range of non-furniture items, including "Triangular Paper Lantern", "Saucer", "Tray", a dharma named after "Matsuomaru", a character in the Kabuki play "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami", and a glass vessel (prototype).
He disliked being called "teacher", and even at the age of 80 he still went to various exhibitions to learn and absorb. His passion for design, his curiosity, his inquisitiveness and his sincerity encouraged many people to follow in his footsteps.

Masterpiece

Masterpiece

Furniture

"Freedom Chair" ITOKI (1973), "Tabi Chair" Kiso-Mitake Okumura Design Office (1991), "Happa Chair" Kiso-Mitake Okumura Design Office (1992), "Cho Stool" Kiso-Mitake Okumura Design Office (1992), "Triangular Stool" Kiso-Mitake Okumura Design Office (1996), etc.

Other

"Triangular Paper Lantern" Asano Shoten (2006), "Tray" METROCS (2006), "Saucer" METROCS (2006), "Shuki" h concept (2011), " Matsuomaru" (year of production unknown), etc.

Books

"Cho Daisaku 84 sai genneki dezaina", Rattles (2006)

Report 1

Report 1

TENDO

Interview: 1 November 2016, 10:00 - 12:00
Location: TENDO
Interviewees: TENDO
Interviewers: Yasuko Seki, Tomoko Ishiguro and Aia Urakawa
Author: Aia Urakawa

Introduction

" (Charlotte) Perriand was a designer all her life. But many of my contemporaries, for some reason, all quit design at some point. Why do they quit design? I don't understand how they can quit. I want to be like Perriand and design all my life".
That's what Mr. Daisaku Cho told me when I interviewed him for his book "Cho Daisaku 84 sai genneki dezaina", Rattles (2006). He continued to make furniture and lighting and, as he said, lived out his life in design. In May 2014, at the age of 92, he passed away. Until the end of his life, he was approached by many people to develop new products and reissue projects. In researching the archive, we were introduced to Mr. Hideyoshi Nagoya, the head of h concept, who produced Cho's last work, the sake cup "Shuki", in 2011 when he was 90 years old, and we were able to ask his family (his own sister) about the situation.
As he had no children and no apprentices, it seems that he kept all his materials himself until the end of his life. There were not so many, probably because they had already been sorted out before his passing. After he passed away, his family contacted several people with whom he had been in contact until his last days, and asked them to take over the materials that they thought necessary. We have interviewed them.

We think it is important to talk to people who knew the story as soon as possible

TENDO has produced many masterpieces

One of the manufacturers that has taken over Mr. Cho's archive is TENDO, with its head office and factory in Tendo, Yamagata Prefecture. Founded in 1940, TENDO is a traditional furniture manufacturer specialising in moulded plywood, a technique first introduced in Japan after the war.
They are actively involved in the development of products, not only with in-house designers, but also with external architects and designers. The world-famous "Butterfly Stool" by Mr. Sori Yanagi, the "Spoke Chair" by Mr. Katsuhei Toyoguchi, the "Kashiwado" Chair by Mr. Isamu Kenmochi and the " High back chair" by Mr. Bruno Mathsson are just a few of the many masterpieces that have made their mark in design history.
Showrooms where visitors can actually experience the products are located in Yamagata, Tokyo and Osaka, and the building in Tokyo was designed by the Junzo Sakakura architects and engineers, where the head of the company used to work.
In recent years, more and more people have become interested in manufacturing. The company's factory in Yamagata is also visited by more than 10,000 visitors a year. In addition, Tendo City's hometown tax payment includes TENDO’s furniture such as "Butterfly Stool" in its list of specialties, along with agricultural products such as cherries and apples, which are gaining popularity.

An album of snaps from the construction process

What TENDO received from Mr.Cho's family was six large cardboard boxes of documents. In it, he said, were drawings, photographs and a sketchbook. They showed us some photographs of the material in it. The drawings consisted of full-size plans and scaled-down copies of furniture and buildings, some of which were rolled up into cylinders and others folded. Among them were drawings of the houses and mountain cottages he has worked on since going independent, as well as the restaurant "Terrace Ray", completed in Kamakura in 1978.
The photographs were snapshots of buildings in progress, pasted into an album and accompanied by a brief description in his handwriting. The Mr. Koshiro Matsumoto family's mountain villa, completed in 1988, was shown in an album with snapshots of the construction process and a commemorative photo of the family at the completion of the building.
The sketchbook contains sketches of ideas for furniture and some prototype parts for wooden furniture.

The need for a design archive survey

TENDO has no specific plans for the future of Mr. Cho's drawings. At the moment, they do not have any activities to archive their products or materials. At present, there is not much space to store things, so the prototypes are unfortunately mostly disposed of. The hand-drawn, full-size drawings are kept in a storeroom in the factory in Yamagata, before they were transferred to CAD. The company has begun to think that it is necessary to organise and research information about its products and to pass it on to the future - in other words, to archive it. This was triggered by a special exhibition held in 2014 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the completion of TENDO's Tokyo branch. When they looked again at the products of the past, they found that there were very few documents and many things they didn't understand, and they felt a sense of crisis because the number of people who knew about those days was decreasing.

Keeping a record of oral history

The first thing they did was to seek out people who knew about the period and conduct oral histories. For example, Mr. Akira Takayabu, who worked at the Ministry of Commerce and Industries (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) in Sendai, was asked to explain how the "Butterfly Stool" came to be made at TENDO. They also asked Mr. Tetsuo Matsumoto, who was the chief designer of Mr. Isamu Kenmochi's design associates at the the National Research Institute of Industrial Arts, about how Japan entered the 12th Triennale di Milano exhibition in 1960 and how he started making western furniture at TENDO, and Mr. Makoto Shimazaki, professor emeritus at Musashino Art University, about the development secrets he heard from the factory manager in the late 1950s.
They also spoke to Mr. Mitsumasa Sugasawa, who used to work in the development department of TENDO for nearly 40 years, providing technical support to architects and designers in their work, and who himself designed furniture, about the factory and the development of furniture with designers since the 1960s. They recorded their voices and kept the data as a record.
The company believes it is important to conduct such oral histories as soon as possible. This is because, in the course of their research, they found many things that they wished they had asked the designers themselves before they passed away. In particular, the Japanese furniture designers of the 60's and 70's were active until their old age, and the furniture and interior design industry had never thought about archiving them before.
Nowadays, when people wonder what that was like, there are fewer and fewer people who know about it. I think a lot of people feel the same way. They say, "Now we might be able to find out something", and, "We want to talk to people who knew it all as soon as possible".
Mr. Mitsumasa Sugasawa's book on the history of the company and the development of its products at that time, "Tendo Mokko" (Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha), is a valuable archive of the company. As you can see, TENDO is a furniture manufacturer that has played an important role in the history of Japanese furniture, and the masterpieces it has produced are a valuable cultural heritage. In order to pass on these masterpieces to future generations, it is imperative that the company archives its own products as well as oral histories.

Enquiry:

TENDO
https://www.tendo-mokko.co.jp

Report 2

Report 2

METROCS

Interview: 2 November 2016, 14:00 - 15:30
Location: METROCS
Interviewees: Yuji Shimotsubo
Interviewers: Tomoko Ishiguro, Aia Urakawa
Interviewers: Aia Urakawa

It would be nice if the information in the archives was centralised, available on the web and, on request, available to view in person.

The Metropolitan Gallery, with which he interacted in his later years

Another company that has acquired Mr. Cho's archive material is Metropolitan Gallery. The company was contacted by the family of Mr. Cho, whose representative, Mr. Yuji Shimotsubo, was in contact with Mr. Cho until the end of his life, as he developed products in his later years.
The company sells historic European and Japanese design products from the 50's to the 80's, develops new products and reissues them, and has METROCS shops in Tokyo and Sapporo. Some of the reissued products include Mr. Pierre Paulin's "F-031 Desk", Mr. Max Bill's "Graphic Rug", Mr. Riki Watanabe's "Solid Stool" and Mr. Shosaku Kondo's "SK Lamp". As for Mr. Cho, in 2006 he produced the "Persimmon Chair", "Mushroom Base Table", "Tray" and "Saucer" and held an exhibition to unveil them at galleries in Tokyo and Sapporo in the same year.

A file of memorable work document

Mr. Shimotsubo has selected from among the materials kept by the head of the company and acquired from the bereaved family: drawings, posters, positive films, scrapbooks, books, postcards and small items. The materials, about the size of two cardboard boxes, are stored in the company's warehouse in an unorganised state. We were shown some of them.
The drawings were of Mr. Cho's products made at the Metropolitan Gallery, the posters were from exhibitions at MATSUYA GINZA and elsewhere, and the positive film were in sheets, many in A4 boxes.
I got the impression that the scrapbooks had already been sorted out, and that only the materials of the work that I felt most strongly about were left. For example, a pamphlet, photocopies of photographs, articles and postcards from the 1971 exhibition "Furniture Collection".
It was an exhibition of furniture by three people: Mr. Tadaomi Mizunoe from the office of Mr. Kunio Maekawa, Mr. Katsuo Matsumura from the office of Mr. Junzo Yoshimura and Mr. Cho from the office of Mr. Junzo Sakakura. It was unusual at the time for an architectural firm to be in charge of furniture, and they were known as the "trio". There are also materials from the 12th Triennale di Milano held in 1960, such as plans of the exhibition space, and a pamphlet, plans of the exhibition space, and photocopies of photographs from the "Creators: Daisaku Choh / Gan Hosoya / Novhiko Yabuki Designing a lifestyle for the days to come " exhibition held at the Setagaya Art Museum in 2006.

Postcards from the exhibitions he visited for his studies

The postcards were notices of exhibitions. Some are from exhibitions by Mr. Katsuo Matsumura, Mr. Shiro Kuramata, Mr. Isamu Kenmochi, Mr. Louis Kahn and others, some older and some from the 1960s. A large number of postcards were collected in a file. Mr. Cho was known for his visits to various exhibitions. He also travelled around the country in his BMW. I remember that even though he was over 80 years old, he still walked briskly with his hunting cap on, saying "It's for my own study".
Some of Mr. Cho's furniture, including the "Triangular Stool", which he designed himself, has been taken over by his family. According to Mr. Shimotsubo, there were many other pieces of furniture that were on display at Mr. Cho's exhibition in 2006, and about 20-30% of them are still missing. Other items include small objects, such as an bird figurine from the Otori Shrine, which he collected in his later years, and a collection of about 20 books.
Mr. Shimotsubo says he has no particular plans at the moment to make use of these materials. He said, "In fact, the bereaved family said that if I didn't need it, they would dispose of it, so I have just been to the bereaved family as soon as possible. But I haven't had a chance to look at the contents in detail yet, and I'm still keeping them in cardboard boxes. It might be better to keep it in the right place, not in my place. But I think the problem is that there is no such place in Japan".

About the design museum

If there were a design museum in Japan, such archival materials would be properly organised and stored, and would be useful for academic research. We asked him what kind of design museum he would like to see if one were to be created. He says: "It would be nice if the information in the archive was centralised and could be viewed on the web, and if you asked, you could see the actual objects. Even if it's not a big building and there's not much space for exhibitions, if there's a warehouse that can store them, they can be brought out and shown. It would be a great help for me, as a product developer and remanufacturer, to have such a museum. Nowadays, we can see everything on the internet, but it's very difficult to see the real thing. I think it would be good for researchers and students to be able to see and touch the objects themselves".
The Metropolitan Gallery is also not involved in archiving products or materials. Most of the drawings have been converted into data, and prototypes are stored in the gallery's own warehouse. However, all the prototypes, documents and anecdotes from the product development and reissue projects with famous designers from Japan and abroad will be a valuable asset to be preserved for future generations.
There are other archival materials donated by the bereaved family of TENDO and the Metropolitan Gallery, which we will report on in the future.

Enquiry:

Metropolitan Gallery
http://metropolitan.co.jp