Naoto Fukasawa

Naoto Fukasawa (1956-) is one of the most relevant figures in contemporary Japanese design. The beginnings of his career are closely linked to the creation of technological products: his international career began in 1989 at IDEO, a large American product design and project consultancy company based in Silicon Valley. He returned to Japan in 1996 to lead the local branch of IDEO, before setting up his own studio in 2003. He links his name to a hugely popular brand such as Muji, for which he is a member of the advisory board for products design and for which he signs one of his most famous creations, a wall-mounted CD player that soon enters the collections of all the most important design museums in the world, such as the MoMA of New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. After having also worked with brands such as Hitachi and Panasonic, in 2006 he established his first important collaboration with a furniture brand, Maruni, a fine Japanese cabinetmaker of which he also became the art director. It is then through the collaboration with an international design giant such as B&B Italia that he has the opportunity to perfect his style, based on products with a strong plastic value, sober furniture-sculptures without edges, whose silhouettes are all played on the motifs of soft welcoming curves. His products also appear in the catalogues of some of the most important international design brands, including Boffi, Herman Miller, Magis, Plank, Driade, Glas Italia, Alessi and many others.