I decided to wrap up my tour of this year’s Salone up to this. I know Azumi is showing a lot of items, but I’ve seen his works displayed only for Next Maruni. I met Jasper Morrison at Fiera by chance. He said he is showing only three works of his. I’m afraid I haven’t seen even one of them. He invited me for lunch but I declined his invitation, as I wanted to see around more of this year’s Salone still left unseen. I’ve not been able to see a single item of him, yet.

How much you can see there may have been already decided at the stage of planning to visit Milan to see Salone. My case may be a kind of successful case in terms of how much I could see since I chartered a taxi with a driver who took me to most of the important places to visit from 9 o’clock in the morning until 6pm in the evening.

In a nut shell, things now are not what used to be. Certainly something is about to change in an unprecedented manner. People’s demand for furniture industry as well as furniture industry itself is now in the process of great alternation.

Activities for guiding the conceptual trend of furniture and space that can render people’s hearts rich must be taken to get it back on right track. Something required now is to nurture the genuine creative spirits of young talents, getting rid of those who take designs as mere means of making money, I feel.

(Translated by Yuji Tazaki)