Date: 12 July 2008, at 10.00
Place: Tsuda Hall T101,102
tsudahall.com/THHP2/mainindex.htm

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Date: 22 March 2008, at 13.30
Place: The University of Digital Content

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Date: 8 December 2007, at 14.00
Place: Tohoku Institute of Technology
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Any member interested in presentation at the Research Workshop should contact the Secretariat by Friday, 22 June 2007.

Date: 15 July 2007, at 14.00
Place: Saitama University, Tokyo Station College [Access]

Presentation 1
Lecturer: Endo Ritsuko (PhD Candidate, Chiba University)
Theme: Book Design in Modern Japan

Presentation 2
Lecturer: Kudo Yasuyo (Partner, Art & Society)
Theme: Environmental Design and Functional Art in Public Realm: Critical Issues and Social Values: An Examination based on American Public Art History in the 1980s

Keywords
Public Art, Urban Design, Public Place, Functional Art, 1980s
Abstract
In present days, policies relating public art, i.e., art created for public places, has been increasingly adopted by cities and other local governments in Western as well as emerging Asian countries with purposes to solidify cultural policies of local cities as a part of urban design policies.

Among the nations with established public art policies, United States initiated the policies early in the 1930’s after the depression. Then in the 1960’s the federal government restarted the public art policies led by art specialists and critics and installed modern abstract sculptures into cities crossing the wall of museums. Its direction was ‘fine art oriented’ emphasizing the value of purity of expression. In the 70’s, these trials were criticized as ‘plop art’ as those sculpture were unrelated to the sites where they were installed. These controversies led the thoughts on ‘site-specific art’, i.e., art work that exists within the context of the properties of the site it is installed. Through this arguments and experiments, public art began to establish its own identity and to trigger new expression in public art field. Simultaneously, experiments letting artists to direct parts of urban design caused a change in the function of artist from acting solely in urban design activities to the amalgamation of ‘art and Design’. This became a trend continuing until now, normalizing collaboration of artists and other design professionals in urban design.

In this report, ‘useful art’, ‘functional art’ __ artists led product design of useful parts of city construction such as plaza, pedestrian walk, bench, bridge, fence, pergola, etc. __ which became a fashion in the 1980’s, is focused for discussion. Analyzing the background for the emergence of the functional art in those days and evaluating the relationship among the artists as creator, citizens as audience and government officers as management, this report searches to discover the factors led to transformation of the art which was valued as creative activities of an individual in the past to art which resonate with actual function of cities, cultural and social tradition of sites. In this report, focusing on the demand by the citizens for functional values and criticism against it by some artists and art professionals, arguments surrounding functional and useful art are discussed and counteractive relationship between public sphere and art is examined.

Date: 17 March 2007, at 13.00
Place: Kyoto Women’s University

Presentation 1
Lecturer: Tsuchiya Nobuo (PhD Candidate, University of Tsukuba)
Theme: Katsumi Masaru and the Design Movement: With a Focus on Japan Design Committee
Keywords
Katsumi Masaru, Design Movement, Good Design, Japan Design Committee, Ginza-Matsuya, Design Gallery, Design Gallery Exhibition, Art Environment Support
Abstract
I am going to elucidate how Katsumi Masaru played an important role as a design coordinator who contributed to the prosperity and development of the design movement, principally focusing Katsumi’s activity in the Japan Design Committee.
In terms of the design movement, I consider various movements in art, industry, and society in Japan, as well as consumer trends. In particular the ‘good design’ movement is related to consumerism (as a citizen’s movement).
In its contemporary state, the design gallery became ‘Gallery Ma’ in 1985, the ‘Ginza Graphic Gallery’ in 1986, under the name of which it is now enjoying its twentieth year. On the other hand, there is a reduction of activity and cancelled exhibitions in other design galleries due to economic conditions.
It’s interesting to note that the genealogy of a design gallery is something which remains to be properly researched. In other words, in terms of precedence, such studies are largely absent.
Also, as a researcher in the field of Art Environment Support, the various specific specialisations implicated in my said subject (the Design Gallery) highlighted the need for a clarification of its genealogy, toward a complete picture of its activity.
A study of Katsumi and the Japan Design Committee as the basis for such research – elucidating their exhibition activities – becomes meaningful from many angles.
Therefore, as the subject of this presentation, Katsumi’s design activity assumes a fundamental role, not only for the subject at hand, but also as a platform for broader issues in the field of Art Environment Support.
The contents of my presentation are as follows:
(1) Research aim and method
(2) A brief career history of Katsumi Masaru
(3) Katsumi’s position and relationship alongside other leading design figures
(4) Positioning the design movement in a design encyclopedia
(5) ‘Good Design’: the Japan Design Committee’s design movement
(6) Conclusion
(7) Future Issues

Presentation 2
Lecturer: Fujiwara Miki (Fukuyama University)
Theme: Study on the Life-Style and Interior Design in the Novel, JIN PING MEI
Keywords
JIN PING MEI, HISUI – house, Scholar, Su shi, Dong po – chair, Interior design
Abstract
This presentation aims to make clear the private lifestyle and interior design of bureaucrats, mainly concerning to the study house ‘HISUI – house’ in the novel JIN PIN MEI.
As a result, next six points become clear:
(1) In general bureaucrats are persons of culture and have a public life-style and a mental private lifestyle. The latter is mainly performed in the study.
(2) An ideal study house should have nature inside and outside of its room and be purified. They place stationery and antique on the desk and spend spiritual life, appreciating them.
(3) They read books, play music, keep healthy life and enjoy a doze in the afternoon.
(4) They design stationery, furniture and interior to make their spiritual and healthy lives enrich. Therefore their idea is very close to the modern ‘sensitivity engineering’ and ‘human engineering’.
(5) The term ‘HISUI’ is used for giving the house the meaning of a wish for ageless and immortal life and a desire for productivity and revival.
(6) The ‘Dong po – chair’ Su shi designed and used is a chair for health and spiritual calmness. Its motif of the top of the backrest is designed from a legendary plant called ‘l ng zh’ which grows in a sacred place. It seems that the ‘TOUBA chair’ is the original model of ‘T ai shi – chair’ in the period of Qing Dynasty.

Presentation 3
Lecturer: Matsushita Hisako (Curator, Department of Cultural Promotion, Nagasaki Prefecture)
Theme: Mikawachi Ware in the Second Half of the 19th Century: With Reference to De Ath & Co. of Kobe

Date: 2 December 2006, at 10.00
Place: Iwamai Art Museum, Shimane

Presentation 1
Lecturer: Matsukuma Tatsuya (PhD Candidate, Fukuoka University)
Theme: Design and the Copyright in the Early Victorian Period

Presentation 2
Lecturer: Kawano Katsuhiko (Iwami Museum of Art, Shimane)
Theme: Design Education in Modern Japan: Yasuda Rokuzo and Vienna

Date: 11 March 2006, at 14.00
Place: Saitama University, Tokyo Station College

Presentation 1
Lecturer: Inoue Ayano (PhD Candidate, Tokyo Polytechnic University)
Theme: Japanese Art Judging from Walter Crane

Presentation 2
Lecturer: Nishimura Mika (Meisei University)
Theme: The Idea on Design by Habara Shukuro: One Step in the Japanese Design History after the World War II

Date: 3 December 2005, at 13.15
Place: Kobe University

Presentation 1
Lecturer: Tsunemi Mikiko (Kyoto Women’s University)
Theme: Kuwasawa Yoko and Design Movement

Presentation 2
Lecturer: Yamamoto Masayuki (Hyogo University of Teacher Education)
Theme: New Trend of British Typography in the 1930s

Date: 26 March 2005, at 14.00
Place: Kyusyu Sangyo University
Presentation 1
Lecturer: Harikai Aya (Nagasaki University)
Theme: Handy-Crafts Workshop Union in Munich
[Keywords and Abstract]
Presentation 2
Lecturer: Arakawa Norihiko (PhD Candidate, Waseda University)
Theme: Pottery Design in the Latter Half of the 18th Century in Britain: In Case of Josiah Wedgwood’s Printed Pottery

Date: 4 December 2004, at 14.00
Place: Saitama University
Lecturer: Tsujimoto Yuki (Independent Researcher)
Theme: Farmers’ Arts Movement: Focusing on Kanae Yamamoto