Daijiro Mizuno

Writer; Editor; Educator / Japan /

www.daijirom.com

Daijiro Mizuno’s Notable Books of 2011

Christmas is coming soon. And I wonder, if I am to give a book as a Christmas present, what will people feel? What will be inside the glossy gift wrap? What impression will people have as they open it?

Books are to be read and are seen as a great source of information. But even before that, we recognize them as tangible objects through their presence and perceptual stimuli. I want the gift books inside the wrapping to be beautiful—in both the tactile and visual sense. I believe in the holistic experience of reading books as the sum of smell, weight, texture, and look. . . . View the complete text

Books are to be read and are seen as a great source of information. But even before that, we recognize them as tangible objects through their presence and perceptual stimuli. I want the gift books inside the wrapping to be beautiful—in both the tactile and visual sense. I believe in the holistic experience of reading books as the sum of smell, weight, texture, and look.

So I thought that heavy books would be nice (but not too heavy, like a dictionary). I selected three heavy books: on fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, on artist Tacita Dean, and on product designer Sam Hecht, all of whom I appreciate.

In addition, I decided to select OLIVE, a book edited by a young Japanese product designer called Nosigner. Based on the voluntary and virtual mass collaboration that occurred on Twitter immediately after the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, this book introduces many great designs created through bricolage and intended for survival under extreme conditions.

March 11 is a devastating day to remember for many Japanese. The earthquake, record-breaking tsunami, and nuclear power plant explosion seriously damaged the culture. I am currently working with Architecture for Humanity to support the reconstruction at Shizugawa, as tsunami-hit areas are still struggling. I wanted to select this book in memory of those who died in this triple disaster and of those in the many other disaster-stricken areas around the world.

冬休みがいよいよ迫ってきた。

私は、本を人にプレゼントするとき、もらった人はどう思うかを考える。包み紙の中に入っているのは、果たして何がいいのだろうか？包み紙を開けたとき、どのような感動があるだろうか？

本には「見られ、読まれる」情報である以前に、モノとしての現前性、知覚的刺激によって認識される。包み紙が破られて現れるモノが、視覚的にも触覚的にも読者にとって美しい体験であって欲しい。私は視触覚的な感動がもたらす総合的体験が「情報」と等価であることを信じている。

そこで、私は自身が実際に手にとったことのある３つの「重い」本をまず選定基準にした。フセイン・チャラヤン、タシタ・ディーン、サム・ヘクトと、ファッション、ファインアート、プロダクトとそれぞれ領域が異なるものをあえて選んだつもりである。

また、軽くて小さな本ではあるが、nosigner編のOLIVEを紹介することにした。2011年3月11日は、日本に住む人のみならず、世界中の人にとって津波、地震、原子力発電所の事故に見舞われた日本の東北地方は衝撃を与えた。筆者も11月からArchitecture for Humanityとのコラボレーションプロジェクトを志津川にて展開しているが、被災地は未だ十全に整備されていない。私は、災害のリマインダーとしてこの本を選び、この年に災害で亡くなった世界中の人に追悼の意を表すことにした次第である。

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Hussein Chalayan

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Robert Violette Editor

Judith Clark

Susannah Frankel

Although there have have been books on Hussein Chalayan published in recent years to accompany exhibitions of the clothing designer’s that have been held worldwide, this unique and beautiful book contains Chalayan’s drawings reflecting the process of his explorations of “conceptual” design.

フセイン・チャラヤンの作品集。これまでにもフセイン・チャラヤンの作品集は出版されたり、他の図版で紹介されてはきていたが、この本はドローイング等も収録し、より詳細にファションデザインにおけるデザインプロセスを捉えることからコンセプチュアルと評される彼のデザインの背後を明らかにしようとしている。

OLIVE (A Handbook to Protect Your Life)

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Nosigner

This book derives from information exchanged on Twitter immediately after the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. At the time, social networking via mobile phone was an incredibly important—the only—tool for learning about the needs of those who were affected by disaster. Those who lived far from the devasted area exchanged information and relayed offers of help, but there was no effective platform to facilitate and archive them.

Nosigner then came up with a Wiki project called OLIVE (Open Ideas and Designs for Earthquake Survivors) to enable mass collaboration for aiding the striken area and victims. He invited designers to submit ideas for designs that would be useful for disaster relief, archiving these design entries, which could be assembled at an evacuation center. Nosigner later edited the uploaded entries and created this book. It is full of tips and tools for survival in extreme conditions, and I would like everyone to read it as a reminder of disasters of any kind around the globe.

この本は、3月11日直後から開始されたツイッター上での情報交換に端を発する。災害にあった人々と直接やり取りができたという意味で、SNSの即時性は極めて効果的なツールとして機能した。被災地域から遠くにいる人でも「何か助けになれば」と多くの人々は情報交換をし続けたが、そのための有効なプラットフォームが存在しなかった。

そこでnosignerは震災のためのデザインのウィキペディアOLIVEを立ち上げ、応急ステージにおけるマス・コラボレーションを可能とした。一般人から集められた数多くのブリコラージュ的デザインを紹介し、被災地域にあっても即座に利用可能な情報として提供したのである。この本は、そのウェブサイトにアップされた沢山の情報をnosignerが書籍として編纂したものである。災害時に必要な知識や、すぐにでも制作可能な道具等が紹介されており、ぜひとも自然災害に対してのリマインダーとして読んで頂きたい。

Seven Books Grey

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Tacita Dean

A box-set monograph on the work of artist Tacita Dean, published by Steidl—a publisher world-famous for the beauty of its books. This is an updated version of Dean’s Seven Books (2003), published as a similarly designed white box set from Steidl. This box set is designed using seven beautiful gray tones to illustrate Dean’s serene narrative.

美しい美術書籍を出版することで世界的に有名な、スタイデル社から出版されたタシタ・ディーンの作品集とエッセイなどのボックスセット。以前にも同様の設計で白いボックスが出版されているが、今回の本はグレーのトーンに分けられたシンプルな本になっている。ディーンの作品に見られる静謐な物語性に沿うかのような、美しい装丁。

Usefulness in Small Things

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Kim Colin

Sam Hecht

The origin of this book was a personal fascination of Sam Hecht’s. For his project “Under a Fiver,” he purchased products that cost under five British pounds as he traveled around the globe. His collections of quirky products are both particular to the area where he purchased them and at the same time universal to human behavior. This book is full of inspiration not only in the context of design but also as a work of cultural anthropology.

サム・ヘクトによるこの本は、Under a Fiverと題された彼の個人的なプロジェクトに端を発する。ヘクトは、世界中を旅する間に現地で5ポンド以内で購入することができるプロダクトを収集していた。収集されたプロダクトは、購入された場所におけるコンテクストの固有性と同時に普遍性も垣間見ることができ、デザイン的観点のみならず文化人類学的な見地からも興味深い内容になっている。

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