Kuramata's designs reflect the confidence and creativity 
of postwar japan, retaining a strong identity based on 
traditional japanese aesthetics while breaking new ground
through the use of innovative materials. he combined the
Japanese concept of the unity of the arts with his fascination 
with contemporary western culture, inventing a new design 
vocabulary: : the ephemeral, the sensation of floating and 
release from gravity, transparency and the construction of light.
Kuramata reassessed the relationship between form and function, 
imposing his own vision of the surreal and of minimalist ideals 
on everyday objects.

Born 1934 in Tokyo between the wars, the son of an administrator 
who became vice-director of a scientific institute, Kuramata was 
raised in Japan. He received a traditional training in the woodcraft 
department at Tokyo's Polytechnic High School, and then went on 
to work in a furniture factory, the 'teikoku kizai company' (1953). 
he pursued his studies in interior design at the 'Kuwasawa Design 
School' in Tokyo (1956) -institute that taught western concepts of 
interior design- the he was hired by the small department store 
'San-ai' as a designer of showcases as well as floor and window 
displays (1957). after a brief stint as a freelance designer for the 
retail giant 'Matsuya department store' (1964) the following year 
he opened his own design office in Tokyo (1965).

During the 1970s and 80s, Kuramata, alert to the revolutionary 
possibilities of new technologies and industrial materials, 
seized upon acrylic, glass, aluminum, and steel mesh to create 
objects that appear to break free of gravity into airy realms of 
transparency and lightness. 

http://www.designboom.com/portrait/kuramata.html

Richard T. Walker’s three-channel video projection, the speed and eagerness of meaning (2011), sees the artist wandering across the epic expanses of the Mojave Desert on a quest for revelation; a pilgrimage in search of the sublime. As he traverses the vast barren landscape, a monologue describes the insurmountable chasm he encounters between meaning and affect:

- As you try to assemble what is now before you, you mourn a little for what you have lost, for you could never again acquire the not knowing that so beautifully placed you in the centre of it all. Now you can only draw parallels, assign differences, translate things into opposites, find commonalities, draw distinctions and embrace the overarching failure of all this togetherness.

ACHILLE CASTIGLIONI
Born in Milan in 1918, he graduated in Architecture in 1944.

Since 1940 he had dedicated himself to experimenting on industrial products with his brothers Livio ((1911-1979) and Pier Giacomo (1913-1968). Their interests were directed towards Urban Planning, Architecture and Design; they performed analysis and research on new forms, techniques and materials, aimed at developing a process of “integral design”.

In 1995 on the occasion of the award “Primavera del Design”, his “personal” exhibition “A la Castiglioni” was organized in Barcelona and then again at the Furniture Fair in Milan, at the Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery in Bergamo, in 1997 at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, at the MoMA in New York, in 1998 at the Living Design Center Ozone in Tokyo, at the Art Museum in Niitsu and at the De Beyerd Museum in Breda.

Very many objects designed by Achille Castiglioni have been produced by remarkable companies such as: Aerotecnica Italiana, Alessi, Aura, Brionvega, Bernini, B&B Italia, BBB Bonacina, Cedit, Cimbali, Danese, De Padova, Driade, Feg, Flos, Fusital, Cassina, Gavina, Ideal Standard, Italtel, Il Coccio Umidificatori, Interflex, Lancia Auto, Longoni, Marcatrè, Moroso, Nagano, Olivetti Synthesis, Omsa, Ortotecnica, Phonola Radio, Poltrona Frau, Poggi, Phoebus Alter, Perani Fonderie, Rem, San Giorgio elettrodomestici, Teorema, Kartell, Up & Up, VLM, Zanotta.

His professional activities spanned throughout the fields of Architecture and Urban Planning; he earned international recognitions for his projects applied to serial production in the fields of lighting fixtures and furniture as well as for his breathtaking installations realized around the world.

Achille Castiglioni died in Milan on December 2, 2002In 1969, he was nominated Professor of “Artistic Industrial Design”; he chaired the Faculty of Architecture in Turin until 1980 and taught in Milan until 1993 as Professor of “Industrial Design” at the Polytechnic of Milan. - http://www.achillecastiglioni.it/