Along with fashion designer and friend Issey Miyake, architects Arata Isozaki and Tadao Ando, and film-maker Akira Kurosawa, Kuramata belonged to the remarkable generation of talented young Japanese who transformed the way that Japan was viewed by the world. All of them were born just before the outbreak of the second world war and grew up under the grip of an authoritarian militarist dictatorship that demanded obedience and conformity.
After the war, their generation was the first to come to maturity with a chance to express itself. Kuramata’s work was clearly modern in the way that it used materials, and specifically Japanese in its simplicity and elegance. Yet Kuramata was always prepared to experiment. He explored the potential of commonly-used materials as if they were precious, using humble acrylic or chipboard, or the kind of steel mesh used to reinforce plaster.
Born on November 29, 1939 in Tokyo, Japan he transformed common materials into objects of beauty and utility.
He opened his studio in Tokyo, the Kuramata Design Office in 1965 and when he died in 1991 he had created an enviable body of work, the most successful one being the "Blanche Chair" named after Tennessee Wiliams' character in a Streetcar Named Desire, Blance Dubois.  We are lucky that one of MODERNISM.COM's dealers is offering the "KO-KO" chair on this website.