Design Art Tokyo kicks off this week, transforming the city into an open air museum

Beginning this Friday, October 23, 2020, the annual Design Art Tokyo descends upon the city, transforming retailers and cafes and all sorts of venues into galleries. For 12 days, Tokyo becomes an open air museum where designers, artists and creators from around the world showcase their talents. There are any number of ways to enjoy the event. You can browse all the exhibitions and plan your own route with help from this PDF map. You can also seek inspiration by flipping through the official catalog. And if you can’t make it Tokyo this year there are a bunch of online talks that are happening.

Read on for just a few of our favorite picks!

Omotesando

Venues have been decentralized this year to prevent overcrowding. But the coronavirus is on people’s minds in other ways too. As more people transition to remote working, designers are looking for ways to make home offices more fulfilling. At the World Kita Aoyama Building you’ll find an exhibition titled New Home Office where designers attempt to redefine a new style of work-from-home.

Muuto presents their line of furniture at World Kita Aoyama Building

At Omotesando Hills Main Building B3F Space O, Kumamoto-based studio FIL presents their new line of sumi furniture inspired by a local tradition of controlled burning of the grassland

also at Omotesando Hills Main Building B3F Space O, French designer Flavien Delbergue presents a set of wooden storage units that combine the finest craftsmanship of Toyooka

while at Omotesando Hills Main Building, check out artist Yasuhiro Suzuki’s Bench of the Japanese Islands, set in the same direction as the Japanese archipelago