Super Potato Design - by Locher (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Super Potato Design is the first full-length book to present the built work and conceptual ideas of the internationally renowned Japanese design firm Super Potato, founded by Takashi Sugimoto.

Super Potato's powerful designs for the interiors of restaurants, shops, and hotels, as well as Takashi Sugimoto's designs for tea ceremony spaces and utensils, are richly complex compositions of materials which create simple, strong spaces. Using traditional Japanese building materials such as bamboo, wood, and stone, but creating original yet timeless spaces, Super Potato's designs avoid specific stylistic characterization and short-lived fashion. By finding contemporary expression for important concepts present in traditional Japan and combining materials in unexpected ways to create exciting spaces, Super Potato's work has had a significant impact on interior design in Japan and throughout Asia.

Super Potato Design is generously illustrated with full-color photographs by the respected Japanese photographer Yoshio Shiratori, who has recorded Super Potato's projects since the firm's conception in 1973. Architect and Japan scholar Mira Locher introduces the ideas and influences of Takashi Sugimoto, the founder and principal designer of Super Potato, and provides a thorough explanation of each project.Architectural drawings further describe the projects. A Foreword by 1995 Pritzker-prize winner Tadao Ando, interviews between Takashi Sugimoto and architect Kiyoshi Sei Takeyama, and also graphic designer Kenya Hara, explore the ideas relevant to Japanese designers today.

Review Quotes

"We do not live only with clear-cut forms; rather, we exist in a world of forms that are often indistinct and vague." --Takashi Sugimoto, architect

About the Author

Architect Takashi Sugimoto, born in Tokyo in 1945, studied metal sculpture before graduating from the Crafts Course of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 1968. He founded Super Potato in 1973 and became a professor at the Musashino University of Fine Arts in 1992. He received the Mainichi Design Award in 1985 and 1986, as well as the Interior Design Association Award in 1992.

Mira Locher is an architect and professor who works in the U.S. and Japan. She studied at Smith College before receiving her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After working for Team Zoo Atelier Mobile in Japan for seven years, she set up an architectural practice in the U.S. with Takayuki Murakami. Mira Locher is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba (Canada). She is the author of Super Potato Design, Zen Gardens and Zen Garden Design.