Humidifier designed by Naoto Fukasawa
In the prologue to his book, White, Kenya Hara writes: ‘it is my hope that, by the time you have finished reading this book, “white” will look differently to you.’ It certainly does that, perhaps more so for the English speaking readers, as Hara also notes.
This simple essay is filled with reflections on Japanese history and the culture’s inherent sensitivities that have influenced the directions of some contemporary designers, architects and artists, from Japan and abroad. Referring to the internationally acclaimed book, In Praise of Shadow by Tanizaki Junichiro, Hara writes, ‘locating a vanishing point of a drawing using shadow is splendid. Yet can’t there be another vanishing point, namely, that of extreme brightness contrasted with dark shadow?’
Hara relates whiteness to the concept of emptiness throughout the book, arguing the power of simplicity. He investigates the Japanese sensibility, analysing the 15th-century Higashiyama Jishoji temple that Ashikaga Yoshimasa built in Kyoto, including the teahouses, and Sen no Rikyū, who refined the simplicity of teahouse space. Hara explains that ‘the teahouse’s very emptiness turns it into a stage on which human consciousness can rise to the metaphysical level’. He argues that emptiness is part of a communication process as we move to fill in spaces, expressing also his belief that communication and ideas emerge from emptiness.
Hara, graphic designer and Muji art director, is among many designers who work well with ‘white’, including architects in Japan such as SANAA and Sou Fujimoto, or product designer Naoto Fukasawa. Muji products are now popular worldwide and SANAA has built internationally. Japanese designers are particularly skilled at designing white, or translucent, canvases, which become the background to activities and the everyday uses.
Obviously, this method is not just limited to Japanese design and modern simplicity is everywhere. However, successful designs by Japanese designers seem to have the refined sense of control and indeed, ‘emptiness’, perhaps founded subconsciously in its history such as Sen no Rikyū’s Seven Rules for the Way of Tea. Hara cites that ‘the ideal that we strive for is the realization of a plan that will evoke the imaginative powers of our audience’.
The last chapter is the most fascinating part of the book, in which he discusses ‘cleaning’ and ‘defamiliarisation’. On cleaning he says, ‘I think the Japanese sensibility is probably more attuned to preservation than newness… I think that innovation comes from that consciousness that tries to maintain things as they are’. On defamiliarisation, he argues, ‘I think that the attempt to create “unfamiliar” objects is the essence of the creativity that leads us to “understand” things… Defamiliarisation is closely related to white. White lies in our consciousness as fresh information escaped from our established world of knowledge’.
This book is not about colour, rather an attitude towards design. In an age where opinions divide over iconic objects and context-sympathetic designs, this book offers another angle. It adds to the debate that ‘to design’ can be a more subtle process, requiring utmost sincerity, training and accumulated experience to create a space to receive people in.
