XXIst Century Man, Tokyo

Has it really been a year since architect Tadao Ando unveiled 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo (W*98)? The low-slung building - a swooping construct of concrete, glass and light - was conceived as both a museum and platform for contemporary Japanese designers and companies to stage their creations. As Ando said at the time, 21_21 was 'a place for researching the potential of design as an element that enriches our daily life, a place that fosters the public's interest in design by arousing in them different... perspectives on how we can view the world.'

Cabbage Chair, Nendo

And what perspectives there have been in the past year - from photographic essays on the plight of cocoa farmers in the war-torn Ivory Coast to oddly compelling video installations of construction sites, the insights have both challenged and thrilled local culture vultures.

The current exhibition XXIst Century Man - curated by fashion designer and director of 21_21 Issey Miyake - has an equally lofty goal: to understand how, in the context of increased environmental stress, we can (or indeed should) live and work.

Though the exhibition is headlined by both new and established works by the likes of Isamu Noguchi, Ron Arad and Tim Hawkinson, two pieces in particular have caught our eye.

Miyake asked Tokyo design firm Nendo to make furniture out of the pleated paper that is produced (and normally discarded) when making pleated fabric. While 'Cabbage Chair' reminds one a little of Cousin Itt, it's nevertheless a clever take on sustainability - resins give the construct structure (there are no nails or screws) and the whole can be shipped as a compact roll.

Equally winning is an installation by Miyake himself. For 'The Wind', he playfully deconstructs Dyson vacuum cleaners and reassembles the parts to create robots dressed in outfits from Miyake's Dyson A-Poc collection that he showed last autumn in Paris.

If this is what the future looks like, we're on-board for it.

12 May 2008 | Art