Design in Japan is deeply rooted in the country’s historic craft culture, profound understanding of materials and commitment to functionality. These qualities yield chairs, cups and other daily use items which are easy on the eye, comfortable in the hand and always do their job well. Even as mass manufacturing became widespread in the post-war period and cross-cultural exchanges began to take place with the West, Japan held fast to these core values and practices. This dedication has given rise to timeless objects of great beauty and utility as well as innovations in materials, form and technology. Far beyond design icons such as the Kikkoman Soy Sauce Bottle, Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool, and the Sony Walkman®, the products and objects created in Japan over the past seven decades serve to delight and draw admiration. In recent years, a new generation of designers, including Naoto Fukasawa, nendo and Tokujin Yoshioka, have taken Japanese creativity into exciting new territory: some are eliminating objects entirely, others are reimagining what an object could be. Though Japan has developed some of the world’s most sophisticated robotic manufacturing complexes, many of its most appealing products are made by small factories and workshops whose artisans use their hands as much as machines. This impressive volume is the most complete overview of Japanese design to date and its exquisite presentation is itself a beautiful example of Japanese design. Including profiles of over 70 creators, the book is based on the author’s interviews with designers, their colleagues and family members, as well as leading curators and critics. The profiles are accompanied by short takes on iconic products and essays on related topics by Japanese and Western design experts. Featuring hundreds of objects, this volume will become the definitive work on the subject for many years to come.

How the Anglican church responded to population growth and the need for more accommodation, with the building of 1500 new churches, many of the finest quality. This book is the first comprehensive study of late-Georgian church-building. After centuries of post-Reformation inactivity, the Church of England began to address the desperate shortage of accommodation and build on a huge scale. Almost all the leading architects were involved and, amongst approximately 1500 new churches there are some outstanding designs; buildings of the very highest order architecturally. In this pioneering study, the churches are considered free from the Ecclesiological zeal that condemned them and has, for so long, prevented their serious study. It will celebrate the best of them and provide valuable insights into the design and planning of the whole corpus. There will be many revelations. Included is a thorough examination of the stylistic alternatives and contemporary liturgical imperatives, along with their architectural implications. And the book explores a lost world of late-Georgian churchgoing: what people expected and experienced in a church service. Also considered are some of the period's remarkable material and constructional innovations, ones often exploited in church-building, along with the provision of architectural services in the era that preceded full professionalisation.

Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art examines how the collapse of the French franc in the decades following the First World War activated powerful 'push' and 'pull' economic forces that compelled French art collectors to monetise their collections while simultaneously elevating the purchasing power of international art collectors. These factors are shown to have played a significant, and previously under-recognised role, in the large-scale translocation of French modernist art that radically accelerated its commercial and critical reception across the globe and positioned it at the apex of the newly established hierarchy of modern art.