Let’s All Take a Moment to Appreciate Tokujin Yoshioka

It was likely while searching for some newfangled acrylic thing that I recently rediscovered Tokujin Yoshioka’s Tofu Lamp, a solid slab of plastic with a halogen flashlight in one end that I remember admiring a decade ago as an editor at I.D. Designed 17 years ago, the light was the first thing Yoshioka made after launching his own studio, having spent the 14 years prior working for superstars Shiro Kuramata and Issey Miyake, and it still holds up in a major way. These days we tend to think of Yoshioka as an old-guard stalwart who makes interesting immersive installations for brands, and nice-enough objects for Glas Italia; we thought it was worth a public reminder that he was one of the godfathers of the current craze for transparent furniture, and that he also made upholstered pieces for Cassina (top) and Moroso (scroll down) that — had they been released today — would have been among the best things we’d seen all year. Here’s a little refresher course.