Sori Yanagi

Sori Yanagi was born on June 29th 1915 in Tokyo. From 1933 to 1938 he attended Tokyo Art School before working in the offices of architectural firm after his studies. When the French designer Charlotte Perriand was working in Japan at the bequest of the Japanese Ministry of Commerce Sori Yanagi was assigned as her assistant and translator. In 1952 Sori Yanagi established his Yanagi Industrial Design Institute from where he concentrated on product and furniture design. . Common to all Sori Yanagi's designs is their organic appearance, as well as an exciting mixture of western standards and Japanese tradition. Sori Yanagi died on 25 December 2011 in Tokyo. He was one of the most important Japanese designers of the postwar period and apart from his furniture and product designs was also active as an architect and one can still find metro stations designed by Yanagi.