I received another book from my wishlist recently–which also means I really need to get some more posts up here again. This one was Katachi: Classic Japanese Design. This book should be on any designers bookshelf! It is inspiring and highly educational.
Katachi is a visually stunning collection of photographs by Takeji Iwamiya. who was a photographer and professor at the Osaka University of Art. The book itself is the culmination of a lifetime collection of examples of katachi–a term that roughly translates as the essence of the form. He photographed thousands of individual objects ranging from the everyday such as brooms, chopsticks and combs, to tiles and metalwork on temples. In the book are six hundred photographs of his collection organized by material: paper, wood, bamboo, fiber, clay, metal and stone. The main portion of the book has no text, just page after page of full page black and white photographs. There is a wonderful essay as an introduction and in the back a brief, but informative, description of each object in the form of end notes.
If you are an artist, designer or enjoy Japanese are and culture you really should check out this book. I only wish it was available in a larger coffee table hardback edition.
I have become a pedobibliophile. My wife has always been one, and over the past two years I have joined her.
My wife and I have always collected books, especially art, art technique and history books. We each have our own unique collections in our library. I gravitate towards Japanese art, history (particularly American, ancient and military) and typography. My wife has collections of German literature, poetry and hand-craft arts. She has also always collected children’s books. She reminds me from time to time that I occasionally gave her a hard time for picking up a first edition Beatrice Potter collection.
For the past three years the number of shelves dedicated to children’s books has expanded from one shelf to four. Our son has repeatedly told us that “Books are my favorite toys.” We probably spoil him in one major way—-we rarely turn down the request to get a nice book. Right now his favorite author is Jan Brett whose marvelous illustrations keep us all enthralled for hours. Now Animalia, The Alphabet Room and The Mitten sit proudly beside a 1947 Swiss edition of Tschichold’s Chinesches Gedichtpapier vom Meister der Zehnbambushalle, an 1858 copy of Grey’s How Things Grow and Holmes’ 1826 edition of Annals of America. I wonder what the conversations would be if these books could talk to each other…
In the end it just isn’t worth it to struggle against pedobibliophilia. There are so many beautiful books to discover—especially when you discover them along with your little one. But I know my wife will never let me forget how I gave her a hard time for buying that Beatrice Potter collection…
