JAPAN: TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 06
author: Jana Nikolić
December 2006

translation into English: Danijela Tomazović
November 2009

Last year both Belgrade and Tokyo had a premiere: Design Week. Tokyo of course already had Design Week in a different form, but last year this transformed into somewhat more compact event. The theme of TDW'06 was “LOVE”, and the organizer was the Japan Design Association in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. This is actually design fair.

Wide boulevard with Ginkgo trees took to the place where Tokyo Design Week 2006 was held from October 31st to November 5th. At that same place, under the huge white tents as well as in the open, there were:

Design Tide
strewn around the city until now, within furniture showrooms, hair dresser saloons, cafés where the individual promotions of new products were organized.

Container ground exhibition
on a large area covered with grass and reserved for designers back then, there were empty containers for merchandise transportation placed in a shape of letter U and turned into individual showrooms for large companies, schools and individual designers.

Designboom market
Chosen renown and young designers had a chance to present prototypes of their new products and to connect with manufacturers which will in the future turn them into reality– serial production.

Student exhibition
in the lawn, within the empty middle of letter U shaped space formed by the containers, the work of students from 60 design schools in the world were exhibited. The forums and parties are organized in this space during the exhibition.

100% Design
is an event held for the first time in 2006 as a part of Tokyo Design Week and instantly became the most important event that promotes design of contemporary interior. While organized as the continuance of London Exhibition idea, in the period from 1995 until now, 100% Design developed into the most important event of such nature in the world. Carefully chosen local and foreign designers and companies were presented in order to guarantee the visitors with absolute quality and relevancy of exhibitors within the world variety. For 10 EUR ticket price for each entrance into the fair, in multidisciplinary panels, the visitors could listen to the lead architects, designers and manufacturers of furniture, lightning, kitchens, bathrooms, fabrics, home accessories, tapestry and everything else in the field of contemporary interior.

Large and developed markets go as far as to be able to afford this kind of ease and comfortableness, colorfulness and many youth, so that even the most serious companies did not make their presentations too serious. Everything is accessible and there is nothing untouchable. There is no holding off and personal involvement in everything exhibited is completely expected. Being reserved is unforgivable. This means letting the life pass you by.

Links:
- 100% Design Tokyo official presentation
- and of Tokyo Designer's Week
- reports as perfect as always at pingmag
- see more photographs at flickr

Theme: JAPAN
Dried Ocean in a Colorful Bag
Refreshing Drinks