Isamu Kenmochi (, 1912 - 1971) was a Japanese modernist designer significant in the development of Japanese

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

after World War II. Isamu Kenmochi was born on 2 January 1912 in Tokyo. Kenmochi graduated from the Tokyo College of Industrial Arts (, now

Chiba University is a national university in the city of Chiba, Japan. It offers Doctoral degrees in education as part of a coalition with Tokyo Gakugei University, Saitama University, and Yokohama National University. The university was formed in 1949 from exist ...

Faculty of Engineering) in 1932. After his graduation, Kenmochi worked at the Industrial Arts Research Institute in Tokyo. Kenmochi met artist and designer Isamu Noguchi in the summer of 1950 on Noguchi's first trip to Japan. Together, the two developed a number of furniture designs, pioneering the Japanese Modern style which integrated the

material culture Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...

of Japanese furniture with modernist styles. In 1952, Kenmochi visited the United States, later writing about the visit in the Industrial Arts Research Institute's publication, ''Kogei Nyusu''. Later that year, Kenmochi became a founding member of the Japan Industrial Designers Association. Noguchi Kenmochi Chair

In 1964, Kenmochi's 1958 design for a lounge chair commissioned by the Yamakawa Rattan Company was added to the design collection of the

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

. The design additionally won the G-Mark Prize (Good Design Selection System). Kenmochi committed suicide on 3 June 1971 in

Shinjuku is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

, Tokyo.

References

{{Authority control Japanese furniture designers Japanese industrial designers 1912 births 1971 deaths People from Tokyo