Design Museum Japan Exhibition 2025

We have researched everyday culture of places across Japan together with vanguard creators. Our subjects range from the design processes of Yanagi Sori and townscapes of a boatbuilding settlement on Sado in Niigata to state-of-the-art sportswear in Toyama, attractions of the Bon dance costumes of Nishimonai in Akita, skills of the Anoshu stone masons of Shiga, and a distinctive ambience generated by the rooftiles of a Shimane town.

Some may be surprised that these all count as design. It is a fact that each and every one seems just to be a part of everyday Japanese life. The creators, though, have approached the everyday things of localities across Japan to discover them as design, touch them, and derive power from them for their own new creations.

We call them all “design treasures”, and are introducing both the treasures and their background stories in exhibitions and broadcasts.

Our thought is that by linking such design treasures from across Japan, together they can be a single great Design Museum for the entire country. We want as many people as possible all over Japan to realize how design is all around us and brings riches and power to daily life. Please travel with the creators on their journey in quest of design treasures.

This new exhibition centers on eight design treasures researched in the 2024 fiscal year.

What is "Design Museum Japan"?

Since January 2020, NHK's program "Designing a Design Museum" (Educational TV) has been asking leading creators, "If you were to create a design museum that does not yet exist in Japan, what kind of thing would you create?"
From the answers, the idea emerged of networking the museums and organizations that hold wonderful "treasures of design" scattered all over Japan, and calling the collective a "design museum." The proposal was that the whole of Japan should become a "design museum."
And since 2021, we have been running a special program called "Design Museum Japan," in which we have searched for "design treasures" together with creators in 27 regions.
The "DESIGN MUSEUM JAPAN" exhibition is in line with the "Design Museum Japan" program broadcast on NHK, and aims to promote the appeal of the region through exhibitions and to highlight a single "design museum" throughout Japan.
We hope to make many people throughout Japan aware that design is all around us, enriching and energizing our daily lives, and to offer a proposal for what a design museum in Japan, which does not yet exist, should look like.

Outline of the Exhibition

Exhibition: Design Museum Japan Exhibition 2025～Collecting and Connecting Japanese Design～
Exhibition term: Thurs. 15th – Sun. 25th May, 2025 (20 days / Closed on Tues. 20th May)
Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo 3rd Floor Gallery 3B (Roppongi 7-22-2, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8558)
Hours: 10:00 – 18:00 (Open till 20:00 on Fridays) Last admission 30 minutes before closing. Opens at 15:00 on Thurs. 15th May.
Admission fee: Free.
Organizers: NHK Promotions Inc., Japan Arts Council, Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Co-host: NHK Educational Corporation
Cooperation: Design-DESIGN MUSEUM
Inquiries: (Hello Dial) 050-5541-8600

Eight creators and the design treasures they found across Japan

Atsuki Kikuchi (Graphic designer)
【Everyday goods in enamel】 The warmth of “design-free” design (Tochigi, Tochigi Prefecture)

Aiko Miyanaga (Contemporary artist)
【the Hiragino fonts】 The Mincho Font of Kyoto Old and New (Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture)

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Architect)
【Ice Chambers】 Cyclical Relationship between Landscape and Shaved Ice (Tenri, Nara Prefecture)

Hisae Igarashi (Interior designer)
【Magic Bottles】 Special products born from the passion of glassmakers (Osaka, Osaka Prefecture)

Seiichi Hishikawa (Visual Craftsman)
【Bumper Catch Banners】 Designs that inspire the fishermen (Yonago, Tottori Prefecture)

Naoto Fukasawa (Product Designer)
【Sekishu Tiles】 An atmosphere generated by tiles (Oda, Shimane Prefecture)

Yoshiyuki Miyamae (Designer)
【Street Market】 A communication design that has lasted 300 years (Kochi, Kochi Prefecture)

Taku Sato (Graphic designer)
【Snacks】 Instinctive design that connects spaces (Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture)

Creator Introduction

Atsuki Kikuchi

Born in Tokyo in 1974.Kikuchi combines such fields as art, craft, architecture and fashion in virtual identity (VI), signage, editorial and other design projects. VI clients include the Aomori Museum of Art (2006), Play!Museum! (2020) and the Yokohama Museum of Art (2024). He has provided art direction for such fashion brands as Mina Perhonen (1995-2004) and Sally Scott (2002-2021), and his 2D works have been featured in many exhibitions.

【Everyday goods in enamel】The warmth of “design-free” design (Tochigi Prefecture)

Atsuki Kikuchi researches everyday enamelware made in Tochigi. He visits the only manufacturer in Japan that performs every process domestically. Enameling is the technique by which glass glaze is baked onto a metal surface. The resulting enamel is a composite that joins beautiful but fragile glass to strong but rust-prone iron, combining their strengths and compensating for their weaknesses.

Enamel products (Tochigi City, Tochigi Prefecture)

Aiko Miyanaga

Born in Kyoto in 1974.From everyday objects shaped from naphthalene to installations of salt, penetrating ceramic sounds and leaf veins, Miyanaga is widely acclaimed for her use of time’s traces to express continuity in a changing world.Recent solo exhibitions include Aiko Miyanaga: Wrapping Poetry (2023) at the Toyama Glass Art Museum and Aiko Miyanaga: Reading the Sea (2023) at Zenbi, the Kagizen Art Museum in Kyoto. She also participated in the group exhibition, World Classroom: Contemporary Art through School Subjects (2023), at the Mori Art Museum.

【the Hiragino fonts】The Mincho Font of Kyoto Old and New (Kyoto Prefecture)

Aiko Miyanaga researches the Hiragino fonts of Kyoto. She considers the birth and dissemination across time of these fonts we now take for granted.

A Mincho Hiragino character (Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture)

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1965.Tsukamoto is a Professor of Architecture at the Institute of Science Tokyo’s School of Environment and Society. After graduating in Architecture from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (now the Institute of Science Tokyo) in 1987, he first continued his studies at the Belleville school of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris in France before co-founding Atelier Bow-Wow with Kaijima Momoyo in 1992. Tsukamoto earned his doctorate at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1994 and, via Harvard University, UCLA and other institutions, took up his present position in 2016. He is a specialist in architectural design.

【Ice Chambers】Cyclical Relationship between Landscape and Shaved Ice (Nara Prefecture)

The architect, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, researches the ice chambers (himuro) of Nara Prefecture. The chambers were filled with ice in winter for use by the court in the heat of summer. Japan’s oldest known ice chambers were excavated in the Fukusumi district of Tenri City in 1991 in the area once known as Tsuge Province. The discovery corroborated mentions of ice being transported from the ice chambers of Tsuge to the capital both in the Nihon Shoki, an ancient chronicle of Japan, and on wooden tablets found at the residence of Prince Nagaya, an 8th century nobleman.

Remains of an old ice chamber (Tenri City, Nara Prefecture)

Hisae Igarashi

Born in Tokyo. Igarashi started out at the Kuramata Design Office before establishing her own Igarashi Design Studio in 1993. A proponent of progressive design, she is active across the broad range of clothing, food, home, work and education projects from spatial design for shopping centers and kindergartens to 3D design for furniture, toys and other commercial products. She is a jury member the Good Design and Kids Design awards and professor of the Musashino Art University Department of Scenography, Display and Fashion Design.

【Magic Bottles】Special products born from the passion of glassmakers (Osaka Prefecture)

Igarashi Hisae researches the vacuum flasks and kettles - called “magic bottles” in Japanese - of the Tenma district of Osaka. Osaka was known as a great glass producing area from the Edo period. It all began with a Nagasaki merchant, Hariyama Seibee, who learned glassmaking techniques from the Dutch and then opened his own glass workshop in Tenma.

“Magic bottles” (Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture)

Seiichi Hishikawa

Born in Tokyo in 1969. Hishikawa started out in the music industry before moving to New York and working in media art in the fusion of music and images. Returning to Japan, he joined in founding Drawing and Manual in 1997. His wide-ranging creative activities have included the directing of corporate brand videos, stage direction for fashion brands, photographic work, and scenography for art museums. He turned to video crafts based on Japanese craft traditions in 2022 and presented his video installation, Karmen, in Taiwan in 2023.

【Bumper Catch Banners】Designs that inspire the fishermen (Tottori Prefecture)

Seiichi Hishikawa researches the fishing boat banners of Tottori Prefecture. It is said the banners were originally used by boats out at sea to tell families and colleagues waiting on the shore they had caught a bumper catch. Today, relatives and friends present them as congratulatory gifts to the owners of new vessels. The bright banners are raised on boats setting out at New Year and on other festive days. Every banner is unique. Hishikawa has long regarded these banners as treasures that ought to be preserved. He visits the owner of a new fishing vessel and the dye workers who made the banners.

Fishing boat banners (Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture)

Naoto Fukasawa

Born in Yamanashi Prefecture in 1956. Rather than emphasizing the designer’s individuality, Fukasawa has a reputation for quiet but powerful designs that prioritize the user’s perspective. Regarded as one of the world’s most influential designers, he has worked for more than 70 global brands and many leading Japanese companies. Fukasawa’s designs span the broad range from daily goods and precision electronic devices to mobility aids, furniture, interiors and architecture. Fukazawa also operates his own design studio. Prizes include the Isamu Noguchi Award and Collab Design Excellence Award, and he holds the UK’s Royal Society of Arts’ honorary title of Royal Designer for Industry. Fukasawa established Super Normal with Jasper Morrison in 2006. In 2022, he set up the Design Science Foundation to delve into the links between design and science. He is curator of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum and vice-president of Tama Art University.

【Sekishu Tiles】An atmosphere generated by tiles (Shimane Prefecture)

Naoto Fukasawa researches the Sekishu tiles of Shimane. He visits the town of Omori which nestles between the mountains in the south-west of Oda City, the location of the UNESCO-registered Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine World Heritage Site. The town still has many historical buildings and other cultural treasures from the Edo Period, including samurai residences and the former magistrate’s office, and is a designated conservation zone for important traditional buildings.

Rooftiles (Oda City, Shimane Prefecture)

Yoshiyuki Miyamae

Born in Tokyo in 1976. Miyamae joined the Miyake Design Studio in 2001 and was a member of the A-POC project team before joining the planning team and serving as an ISSEY MIYAKE designer from 2011-19. A member of the engineering team for the new A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE brand from 2021, he now engages in fresh A-POC R&D.

【Street Market】A communication design that has lasted 300 years (Kochi Prefecture)

Yoshiyuki Miyamae researches a street market in Kochi. This licensed market is held every week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays in Kochi City. The Sunday market is one of the biggest in Japan and represents a continuous history of over 300 years from the mid-Edo period. Miyamae visits the Sunday market convinced there has to be a good reason for such longevity.

The Sunday street market (Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture)

Taku Sato

Born in Tokyo in 1955. Sato started out at Dentsu before establishing Taku Sato Design (now TSDO) in 1984. He has designed various food products, including Lotte’s Xylitol chewing gum and Meiji milk cartons, done graphic design for Pleats Please Issey Miyake, and also emblems for the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and National Museum of Nature and Science. Sato serves as art director for Nihongo de Asobo (Let’s Play in Japanese), a program on NHK’s educational TV channel; is the overall supervisor of Design Ah! and Design Ah! Neo; and the director of 21_21 Design Sight. In April, 2025, he became President of the Kyoto University of the Arts.

【Snacks】Instinctive design that connects spaces (Miyazaki Prefecture)

Sato visits Nishitachi, the Nishitachibana-dori district of Miyazaki, to research the bars known as “snacks” in Japanese. He casts his wide-ranging design eye over their attractions.

Gateway to the Nishitachi entertainment district (Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture)

Exhibition Concept and Design

This exhibition revisualizes NHK’s Design Museum Japan broadcasts in an exhibition format. It is curated by Nomiyama Sakura with the cooperation of Design-DESIGN MUSEUM. Exhibition spaces were designed by Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects and graphic design was provided by Okamoto Ken of Ken Okamoto Design Office Inc.

Tsuyoshi Tane

Since 2006, Architect Tsuyoshi Tane has been based in Paris, where he founded ATTA - Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects). He believes that architecture belongs to the memory of a place, as a connection between the past and the future, his concept of “Archaeology of the Future”. Tane's major works include "Estonian National Museum (2016)," "Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art (2020)," "The Al Thani Collection - Hôtel de la Marine (2021)," "Vitra – Tane Garden House (2023)," and "Imperial Hotel Tokyo New Main Building (scheduled for completion in 2036). Throughout his career, Tane has received numerous awards and honours, including Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2022, the Jean-Dejean Prize of the French Academy of Architecture, Estonian Cultural Endowment Grand Prix, the 67th Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists, among others. He publishes a books, include ‘TSUYOSHI TANE Archaeology of the Future ’ (TOTO Publications). www.at-ta.fr