Replies

1. 
   user-148830 | Apr 18, 2007 04:47am | #1

   Hi Dan,
   Take the lead from your Oak Park neighbor then, Frank Lloyd Wright. Use those elements of all Japanese design that will fit your furniture designs. Since the Japanese didn’t use much furniture inside their houses, there are not many furniture books. There are however books on their Tansu chests which were portable chests.

   I think a better approach would be to investigate Japanese design and then incorporate those elements you prefer into designs springing from your own creative wellsprings. I frequently return to books like “How to Wrap 5 More Eggs”, Hideyuki Oka, Weatherhill Press, a marvelous
   book on old packaging designs. “Japanese Folkhouses”, Norman Carver, Documan Press Ltd, a great book on Japanese architecture and “Japonisme, The Japanese Influence on Western Art in the 19th and 20th Centuries” by Siegfried Wichmann, Park Lane. Also you must look at Hokusai and Hiroshige and their prints. Soak up the feeling and then go to work on your designs.

   For Asian furniture designs, look to China. “Chinese Domestic Furniture” by Gustav Ecke is the bible of Chinese furniture design for me. But the George Kates book, “Chinese Household Furniture” is also a nice source for ideas, shapes, and forms.

   Look at Wright’s hotel design in Japan and the furniture for it and the work of Godwin in Britain for Japanese inspired furniture designs. Have fun with this. It’s a deep well of inspiration.