Tokyo Design Week (TDW), formally known as Tokyo Designers Week, was an annual design event that occurred from 2005–2016, at Meiji Jingu Gaien in central

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Japan. The event featured

product design Product design as a verb is to create a new Product (business), product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is ...

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...

and had expanded to include art and graphic design as well as

short films A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

. Since 2005, Tokyo Design Week had been held at Meiji Jingu Gaien, near Gaienmae Station on the

Tokyo Metro Ginza Line The is a subway line in Tokyo, Japan, operated by Tokyo Metro. The official name is . It is 14.3 km long and serves the wards of Shibuya, Minato, Chūō, Chiyoda, and Taitō. It is the oldest subway line in Asia. The line was named aft ...

History

Originally named Tokyo Designers Week, the event began in 1995 as a

trade show A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and ...

for interior and product design, taking inspiration from trade shows like

Salone del Mobile The Milan Furniture Fair ( it, Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano) is a furniture fair held annually in Milan. It is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. The exhibition showcases the latest in furniture and design from countrie ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

, Italy. Before 2005, the event was held on the artificial island of

Odaiba today is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. Odaiba was initially built in this area for defensive purposes in the 1850s. Reclaimed land offshore Shinagawa was dramatically expanded du ...

Tokyo bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous ...

. In recent years the show was opened to the public and added extra categories to include all aspects of art and design. Two key fairs within Tokyo Design Week for many years were: 100% Design and DesignTide.

Closure

In 2016 there was an accidental fire that occurred at Tokyo Designers Week, when a five-year-old boy was playing on a design structure and it caught fire, killing the child. As a result of the fire, the 2017 Tokyo Designers Week event was cancelled. In fall of 2017, with the future unknown for Tokyo Designers Week, a new festival in Tokyo was launched as a response, the ''Designart Festival''.

Tokyo Designers Week in 2010

2010 was the 25th anniversary of the event. TDW attracted designers and visitors from Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, and across Japan. TDW was held from October 29 to November 3, despite a

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

striking Japan, the event only closed for one day.

Creative direction

For the first time Tokyo Designers Week 2010 was guided by a single creative director, the Tokyo-based French designer, Gwenael Nicolas. Building upon previous years eco and “Green” themes, the philosophy of the show changed in direction to include a broader view of “

Environmental design Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. It seeks to create spaces that will enhance the natural, social, cultural and physical environm ...

” signified by a change in color to “Blue”. Environmental design categories * Earth, featuring collaborations with charities such as WWF * Heart, featuring art installations * Living, featuring cutting edge product designs

Exhibitions

* Graphic and Visual Design competition based on WWF red-list of

endangered animals An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

* Container exhibition, utilizing recycled

shipping containers A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context o ...

as temporary gallery spaces * Designboom mart * Trend Union conference * "Cool Japan", Tokyo conference * Shop exhibition around the Omotesando district of Tokyo. Including a WWF inspired stamp rally. * Student exhibition, showcasing the works of Japanese art and design colleges. * TDW Art exhibition, featuring modern Japanese art including the likes of

Takeshi Murakami Reversi is a strategy board game for two players, played on an 8×8 uncheckered board. It was invented in 1883. Othello, a variant with a fixed initial setup of the board, was patented in 1971. Basics There are sixty-four identical game pieces ...

. * Professional exhibition, where practicing designers could show their works. * Nakadai project, a recycling project involving industrial waste * The

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

based Bicycle Film Festival toured Japan as part of TDW, short films were shown at the main event site.

Awards in 2010

More than 6000 artists and designers submitted their works and projects in the competition. Each category had at least more than 500 submissions. 10-15 works were selected as finalists for each category exhibition. To promote the broader idea of environment, meaning a lot more than " Eco", two new Environmental Design Awards were introduced for 2010; Artist of the year and designer of the year. * Artist of the year 2010:

Tokujin Yoshioka is a Japanese designer and artist. He is active in the fields of design, architecture and contemporary art, and he is internationally acclaimed for his works dealing with light and nature. Many of his works chosen as part of permanent collect ...

* Designer of the year 2010:

Thomas Heatherwick Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of around 200 architects, designers and makers from a studio and workshop in ...

References

External links

*{{cite web, url=http://www.tdwa.com/, title=TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 東京デザインウィーク, website=Tdwa.com, accessdate=5 January 2018 Trade fairs in Japan Furniture Design events Festivals in Tokyo