I don’t think that many people would argue the claim that Shiro Kuramata was one of Japan’s most important industrial designers. And the price which his works sell for at auctions would suggest that he is amongst the world’s top designers. His adaptation of industrial materials into the realm of furniture design has had an outstanding impact. Recently, a gallery has opened up in Tokyo that is specifically devoted to the life and work of Kuramata.

Gallery Yume No Katachi‘s (GMAP) first exhibition, which opened last month and runs through 8/7/2008, highlights the photographs of Takayuki Ogawa, who was the primary photographer of Shiro’s works for many, many years.

via K2 news

Lieko Shiga
Ryo Owada
Gentaro Ishizuka
Atsushi Okada

This is a follow-up to my series last week. If you are interested in any of the photographers I mentioned, most of them have recently published their own photo books and can be purchased at Amazon Japan, one of the few vendors who will ship their products overseas!