21_21 Design Sight

Very recently, a new design center — one that promises to take a different approach to sharing design with the public- opened its doors in Tokyo. Named 21_21 Design Sight (after 21/21 vision; meaning to see beyond today into the future), the museum/research center’s aim is to “share view’s with the many parties involved in design, starting with designers and including companies, craftsmen and engineers, as well as consumers, and to launch a movement to foster interest in, and greater understanding of design.”

Under the directorship of Issey Miyake, Taku Satoh, and Naoto Fukasawa, 21_21 is as much about creating as it is admiring, a concept visible from the moment you arrive at the Tadao Ando-designed structure. The gently downward-sloping steel plates of 21_21’s home do well to prepare visitors of the non-prescribed attitude carried throughout the whole museum, whose opening exhibit, instead of covering more traditional ground, featured 70 artist renditions of chocolate. That exhibit is now closed, but for a look into Japanese performance arts, Tokyo visitors can catch 21_21’s summer program, the LUCKY LUCK SHOW, now through the 24th of August.