Japanese designers
ELLE DECOR:You are the most awarded Japanese designer. You have more than 60 awards to your credit, your objects are exhibited at the MoMA museum in New York. NAOTO FUKASAWA: All this is, of course, very nice, but trophies are not my goal. What is your goal? Let me explain. People have gone crazy looking for something extraordinary - talking vacuum cleaners, walking tables, and they have stopped appreciating ordinary, well-made things. What is the worst thing for a designer today? To hear about your creation: "Nothing special!" So, I do not want to take part in this general madness. I try to remain normal and make extremely simple, convenient, "normal" things. What do you mean by "normal"? Two years ago, my collection of aluminium stools for Magis was shown at the Milan Salone. As I was passing the stand, I suddenly noticed three stools in the corner, in the visitors’ lounge area. People didn’t even realise they were part of the exhibition – they sat on them to rest and have a snack. I was shocked, but Jasper Morrison reassured me. He said: ‘Be glad that people perceive your stool not as an exhibit, but as a piece of furniture, and it is meant to be sat on. There is nothing out of the ordinary about it. On the contrary, it’s super normal!’ So that’s how your joint exhibition ‘Super Normal’ was born? Yes. We exhibited a hundred absolutely normal objects in London – bottles, chairs, tables, the same stools’. Are the things that come out under the brand ±0 also super-normal? The brand name is the key to understanding its ideology. It's very simple: modern man is incredibly tired of fashion. After all, among all these hits that advertising so actively imposes on us, half are garbage. We decided to return everything to the level of ±0 — began to make simple things that honestly do their job.
I read that you don't use the Internet.Why? Not that at all... It would be more correct to say - I turn on the computer only in exceptional cases. There are mountains of useless information there, cluttering up the head. So, the collections from "0" are a decisive "no" to multifunctional devices that hover and even sweep the floor. We identify the main function and cut off all the secondary ones. For example, the calculator "0" adds, subtracts, multiplies and divides, as this device should, and at the same time is completely devoid of services such as the ability to create an address book. What is more in your projects - intuition or calculation? Intuition. I rely on instinct and observation. For example, the design of a mobile phone was suggested to me by an oval-shaped pebble that I found on the beach. I noticed that when a person holds a pipe in his hands, he always twirls it, as if playing with it. And there is no better form for playing than smooth stones. What do you think of Russia? I have never been to Russia. All I can say is that in my opinion, you Russians are too self-critical. For example, why do you criticize your cars so much? In terms of design, your "kopeyka" is a work of art.
