Vernissage on September 4th (Wed.) from 5pm to 9pm
With the generous support of Uchida Design Inc.
September chair, 1977, 600×500×670, Steel with melamine baked coating /Seat: stainless steel mesh. Photo by Nacása & Partners Inc.
From September 5th to 29th, OGATA Paris presents exclusive new editions of the iconic chairs designed by emblematic Japanese designer Shigeru Uchida between the 1970s and 1990s.
The works are available for purchase on a made-to-order basis.
A prolific designer and major figure of post-war Japan, Shigeru Uchida (1943-2016) left his mark on his era with a resolutely contemporary design, at once rooted in a reflection on Japanese aesthetics and in contemporaneity with the cutting edge of global design. In his multi-faceted work, chair design occupies a fundamental and special place. Reflecting on the ways in which space is occupied in Japan and the West, Uchida’s ideal is “transparent, lightweight furniture with a minimal sense of gravity, which transcends physical presence.” His iconic work September (1977) embodies this ideal of the pure chair in every way: pure silhouette, slender steel elements, use of mesh for a heightened sense of lightness.
Resolutely of his time, Shigeru Uchida was at the heart of a network of friendships and aesthetic connivances, in Japan with designer Shirō Kuramata (1934-1991) and fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto (1943-), and in the West with architects and designers Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007), Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) and Gaetano Pesce (1939-2024), among others. As such, he plays a major role in postmodernism in design. His chairs, frequently imitated, are at the origin of an important trend in contemporary design, which values purity and lightness as much as playfulness.
Okazaki Chair (1996), 390×470×770, Wood with lacquer coating, Photo by Nacása & Partners Inc.
The present collection is a reissue of the original, produced in collaboration with Uchida Design Inc. New editions of Shigeru Uchida’s wall shelves are also available.
SHIGERU UCHIDA (1943-2016)
Born in 1943 in Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture), Shigeru Uchida graduated from the Kuwasawa Design School in 1966, eventually becoming its director. He founded Studio 80 in 1981, and quickly became a leading designer of his time, whose work covers not only commercial and residential interior design, but also furniture, industrial design and urban planning. In Japan, he designed interiors for the Yohji Yamamoto boutiques, the Kobe Fashion Museum and the Hotel Il Palazzo in Fukuoka, among others. His furniture works are held at the Metropolitan Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Shigeru Uchida Portrait, Photo by Nacása & Partners Inc.
His constant reflection on Japanese aesthetics in design has also led to numerous experiments, notably in the design of contemporary tea pavilions. He was also a member of the interdisciplinary group Sabie, working on a contemporary reinterpretation of the tea ceremony.
A recognized design theorist, he is the author of numerous books. In addition to a history of post-war Japanese design, he has dealt with a number of fundamental themes on the place of Japan in contemporary design, notably around the issues of bodily movement in interiors, the aesthetics of weakness and the ordinary, and the notion of furniture.
SPECIAL EVENTS
September 4th (Wed), 2024
5pm to 6pm Opening Talk
With the exceptional participation of Marie Godfrain (IDEAT, Editor in Chief), Kiyoshi Hasebe (Uchida Design Inc., Director) and Shinichiro Ogata (OGATA Paris, founder)
Conversation held in French and Japanese, with consecutive translation
6pm to 9pm Vernissage
Preview and cocktail