Remembering Teruo Kurosaki, a creative entrepreneur who embodied Japan in the 1980s

Marc Newson, Philippe Starck, Tom Dixon. These are designers whose names have appeared on furniture brands and countless design media. However, it is no exaggeration to say that Japanese design entrepreneur Teruo Kurosaki, who passed away on 23 March 2026, was the one who gave them a springboard to success on the world stage. He was the founder of the Tokyo-based furniture company Idée. His passing was accompanied by deep sadness among the many designers who’d worked with him. Here, we pay homage to the man who became the custodian of aspiring designers.

Teruo Kurosaki and Idée

Idée was founded in 1982 as a company to create original furniture working with designers from Japan and abroad, aiming to offer a lifestyle rooted in aesthetic sensibility. Over time, the company expanded beyond furniture making to become a lifestyle brand offering a wide range of products – from textiles and plants to music and food – with a mission to encourage adventures into personal interests.

Founder Kurosaki was born in 1949. In the early 1980s, while visiting his younger brother who was studying in London, he encountered antiques. As he looked at Western antiques, he became intrigued by the ideas behind objects that humans had created, wondering, 'Who made these, and with what intentions? What situation were they used in?'

This led him to begin importing Western antiques into Japan, to celebrate the intrinsic value of objects that had been passed down for generations. Kurosaki had an acute eye for aesthetics; he was probably one of the first to introduce midcentury French designer Jean Prouvé’s work to Japan in the 1980s (Prouvé specialist Galerie Patrick Seguin only opened in 1989). Jasper Morrison recalls, ‘I went to Tokyo and I remember meeting [Kurosaki] there for the first time and being impressed that he was showing products of Jean Prouvé and Serge Mouille.’

Idée was founded not only to deal in vintage items, but also with the aspiration to create living environments that would inspire Japanese people to aspire to such a lifestyle, leading to the launch of Idée’s original furniture production. For this reason, Idée had its own workshop from the start, handling production from woodworking and metalwork to electrical work. Its staff formed a community much like the guild craftsmen of the Middle Ages. Its initial furniture was based on European furniture – Thonet’s bentwood chairs or Eileen Gray’s art deco screens.

Marc Newsom and Idée

A decisive moment for Idée, and probably for the design scene in Japan, came in the mid-1980s, when Australian designer Marc Newson, fresh out of art school in Sydney came across Kurosaki. ‘I first met Teruo Kurosaki quite serendipitously. It was the result of an extraordinary (quite literal) crossing of paths in Tokyo in the 1980s when I was in my early twenties. Kurosaki fast became a wonderfully generous mentor, and my very first patron (my only, in truth). A critical part of this support came from how he set me up at Idée. Despite sharing the space with Idée’s employees, I was encouraged to work on and develop my own designs,’ Newson tells Wallpaper*.

At the time, there were many builders’ stores in Tokyo that dealt with lamp fittings, which excited Newson, who gathered components from these suppliers and assembled lighting fixtures to create the ‘Super Guppy’ lamp in Idée’s workshop.

Probably the most recognised of Newson’s designs made at Idée is the ‘Embryo’ chair. Kurosaki asked for the help of a surfing wetsuit manufacturer in Zushi, Kanagawa, using neoprene to realise the distinctive form of Newson’s design.

‘Kurosaki also helped me organise my living accommodation, at times at apartments he owned. His support was sincere and all-encompassing – that of a true friend – affording me the time and space to progress in the field. With him, Tokyo was a city where the future somehow felt present and vital. He was a man who took great pleasure in championing other designers and loved forging connections between those he admired. For me, Kurosaki simply embodied Japan,’ continues Newson.

Making Aoyama, Tokyo, the epicentre of design

‘I started a furniture business without any furniture background. So I didn’t know the rules or the business model in making furniture,’ Kurosaki once said. Maybe because of this, he was willing to risk producing adventurous designs, while other furniture company owners with history might think harder about the practicality and viability of the design.

When Idée opened a four-storey shop in Aoyama in 1995, the neighborhood began to transform into a 'Design Block'. Cassina also opened a showroom in the district in 1997, and other international furniture brands followed suit, both in Aoyama and Omotesando.

After seeing London Designers Block, Kurosaki envisioned Tokyo becoming a city of design. In 1999, he organised Tokyo Designers Block, a series of simultaneous design exhibitions held at local shops. Involving embassies from various countries, this event – which continued until 2005 – introduced to the city the work of designers from around the world, including Sweden, the UK, and France, and was likely the first initiative to proclaim to the world that Tokyo was an epicentre of design.

Kurosaki himself later exited Idée, which is now under the umbrella of Ryohinkeikaku, the firm behind Muji. However, rather than limiting itself to furniture, the Idée shop – which, as early as 1997, featured curated books, music, a florist, and even a coffee stand – significantly broadened the definition of design, and it was precisely this that allowed it to touch the lives of so many people. It could be said to have pioneered the trend, now commonplace at Milan Design Week, of technology and hospitality companies exhibiting alongside furniture brands.