Output details

Travel-writing the design industry in modern Japan, 1905-25

Since 2000, historians have recognised the important role of transnational travel and information flow in the formation of particular designers’ practices (e.g. Christopher Dresser, Le Corbusier, David Adjaye). Nonetheless, many design histories continue not only to operate within national boundaries but also to emphasise them, despite the acknowledged importance of travel in the development of national design cultures.

This chapter presents Teasley’s research into the impact of foreign travel and study on designers in the early twentieth century, another period marked by concerns about national identity, the impact of globalisation on local culture and developing exporters’ presence in global markets. After 1900, the Japanese government sponsored graduate designers’ travels in Europe, America and Asia. This was part of a state strategy for increasing light industry profits in domestic and export markets by strengthening indigenous design for manufacturing. Teasley’s chapter in this peer-reviewed book analyses the diaries, personal photographs, sketches, memos and published travel reports of Kogure Joichi (1881–1943) and Moriya Nobuo (1893–1927), two seminal figures in modern Japanese furniture and interior design education and industry. The section on Kogure’s travels in Manchuria led to new information on furniture manufacturing as state strategy in Japanese-occupied Asia.

The first published research on these sources in any language, Teasley’s chapter offers a close reading in conjunction with theoretical work on travel, identity and narration to illuminate the impact of travel on designers’ self-formation as members of a transnational and cosmopolitan profession in the 20th century.

Teasley was invited to present versions of this chapter to several universities, including the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New York (2008).