Here are eight notable Asian architects and furniture designers demonstrating their creative skills to the world. While we honour our European and American designers, we must not overlook these Asian creatives who have made an unforgettable impression in the architecture and product design industries. The power of Asian design is gaining popularity all around the world. Let’s take a look at these outstanding individuals and their impressive careers.

I.M. Pei

I.M. Pei, or Ieoh Ming Pei, (1917 to 2019) was a Chinese American architect famous for designing the Pyramide du Louvre at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Pei was an American architect of Chinese descent who was most known for his expansive, tastefully constructed urban complexes and skyscrapers. He was born in Guangzhou, China, on April 26, 1917, and passed away in New York City on May 16, 2019.

In 1983, he was awarded the esteemed Pritzker Prize. Pei is known for the glass pyramid he designed for the Louvre in Paris in 1989. It is a glass pyramid situated in the Cour Napoleon in the centre of the Louvre Museum. However, he is also known for other well-known pieces such as the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong (1989), the East Building (1978) of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and the offshore Museum of Islamic Art (2008) in Doha, Qatar.

What many people do not know: Pei’s key moments in his life helped develop his creative mindset, mainly through cultural shifts. Pei quipped that his father was “not cultivated in the way of the arts, but I have cultivated myself.” His interest in buildings and architecture was heightened during their family’s relocation to Hong Kong. In Singapore, Pei designed Raffles City (1986), OCBC Building (1976), and The Gateway (1990).

Pei is one of the world’s most decorated architects having won many awards such as Brunner Prize in Architecture from the National institute of Art and Letters (1961); the Medal of Honor of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (1963), the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal for Architecture (1976), the Gold Medal for Architecture of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1979), the Gold Medal of The American Institute of Architects (1979), and the Gold Medal of the French Académie d’Architecture (1981).
https://pei-architects.com/

Kengo Kuma

Born in 1956, Kengo Kuma is one of the world’s most prominent Japanese architects. After getting his bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Tokyo, the Yokohama-born architect worked at Nihon Sekkei and TODA Corporation. He then shifted to New York to enroll at Columbia University as a visiting researcher from 1985 to 1986.

Kuma started the “Spatial Design Studio” in 1987 and quickly opened “Kengo Kuma & Associates,” his own office, in 1990. He is recognised as one of Japan’s most well-known modern architects. He focuses on bringing back and strengthening ancient Japanese values and practices while skillfully fusing them with the modernistic style of the day. Kuma focuses primarily on materials and their emotional resonance with Japanese traditions.

Kuma is renowned for creating striking architecture that incorporates traditional features and attracts attention worldwide. His approach of fusing cutting-edge designs with time-honoured building techniques quickly won praise worldwide and spread to China and the West. To reduce the possibility of construction creating isolation on the site, Kuma advocates for taking inspiration from the surrounding area and project context. His work has revealed many inventive applications for traditional Japanese materials in the dynamic 21st-century market. To make life more comfortable rather than something that dominates our everyday lives, he has suggested innovative ways to integrate the constructed environment with natural resources like natural light. He also revealed architecture as a skilful art.

In 2021, Kuma was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. His most recent work that got significant publicity was a museum he designed with cascading pipes in Seoul. The Audeum museum’s facade consists of layers of aluminium pipes where one can experience sound firsthand, attested by his firm. “Moreover, it is not just a place to listen to sound; it is an architectural instrument that returns humans to a natural state, allowing them to experience the body’s five senses.”

The cascading pipes on the facade create a pattern of light and shade like sunlight dappled through the trees in a forest. Other notable projects include Wisdom Tea House (2012), Stone Roof (2010), and Water Block House (2007).
https://kkaa.co.jp/

Neri & Hu

Lyndon Neri from the Philippines and Rossana Hu from Taiwan are the husband-and-wife and founding partners of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office. The interdisciplinary office was founded in 2004 and has offices in Shanghai and London. Neri received his Master of Architecture at Harvard University and his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at UC Berkeley. Hu received her Master of Architecture and Urban Planning at Princeton University and her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at UC Berkeley.

The company’s international, multi-cultural team works to reimagine traditional craft, bringing a modern, fresh perspective to their global partnerships and initiatives. Neri&Hu is an interdisciplinary design firm that specialises in interior, graphic, product design, and architecture. The U.S. Interior Design Hall of Fame inducted Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri in 2013. The studio was named one of the Design Vanguards in 2009 by Architectural Record, the A.R. Awards for Emerging Architecture 2010 by Architectural Review (U.K.), and the 2011 INSIDE Festival Overall Winner.

One of the most recognisable works is the Qujian Museum of Fine Arts Extension, China. The museum is located in X’ian, China, and has a remarkable red travertine monolith extension. The museum’s objectives are to preserve Shaanxi’s intangible cultural heritage and to preserve, conserve, gather, and display ancient Chinese murals. The museum, which is classified as an “urban monument,” is located south of the well-known Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an’s Datang Everbright City. It has a new “architectural icon” at its east entrance.
https://www.neriandhu.com/en

Tadao Ando

The legendary self-taught architect is no stranger to the architectural world. The preeminent architect has many awards, such as the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1995) and, most recently, the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award (2022). His architectural style focuses on the “haiku effect” — the beauty of nothingness and space to represent simplicity. His preference lies in creating intricate spatial circulation designs that uphold the appearance of simplicity and pure minimalism.

One standard description of Ando’s concrete is “smooth-as-silk.” He clarifies that the formwork into which concrete is poured determines the construction’s quality, not the mix itself. Japan has a long history of using wood for architecture, which has led to extremely high standards in carpentry craftsmanship. The Japanese believe the wooden formwork should not allow a single drop of water to escape from the form’s seams. In Japan, forms have to be waterproof. Without such, the surface may crack, and holes may emerge. Inspired by a secondhand Le Corbusier book he bought and read, his love for concrete began. He visited Marseilles in France, where Corbusier’s Únite d’Habitation demonstrated the dynamic use of concrete. One of Ando’s most famous works is the “Church of Light”, completed in 1999 and located in Ibaraki-shi, Japan. Through the power and luminosity of light, the intangible element defines and creates new spatial experiences just as much as, if not more so, Ando’s tangible structures, The Church of the Light, incorporates his philosophical framework between nature and architecture.

Another project that turned heads in the industry is the MPavilion 10. Situated in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens, the structure’s striking 14.4-metre-diameter slim aluminium-clad disc hovers over several orthogonally arranged concrete walls, serving as a graceful canopy.
http://www.tadao-ando.com/

Toan Nguyen

With Vietnamese ancestry, Toan Nguyen has carved a reputable name in the furniture design trade for luxury items. Nguyen was born in Paris in 1969 and earned his industrial design degree from ENSCI-Les Ateliers in Paris in 1995. He worked with several Parisian, Barcelonan, and Milanese design studios before starting a collaboration with Antonio Citterio in 1998. In 2000, he was promoted to design manager, and in 2004, to project partner.

He founded the multidisciplinary design company Toannguyenstudio in Milan in 2008, and since then, he has worked with several significant clients. He taught as an assistant professor at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland from 2000 to 2001 and the Domus Academy in Milan from 2000 to 2000. He served on the panel of judges for the Hannover iFDesign 2009 prize. In 2012, he created the “Wow” table for Lema. He delved into designing a modular sofa system and a dining chair for the Fendi Casa collection. The “Totu Wood” dining chair designed in 2023 offers an arresting wooden frame where the seat and back rest are made from Captiolino or Tuscany leather, not forgetting the brand’s signature “Double F” logo at the front of the armrests. His “Soho” modular sofa offers sectional elements highlighted by intriguing leather belt-buckle-straps at the base.

Nendo

Oki Sato is the designer behind Nendo — one of Japan’s most famous design firms. Renowned for his prolific creations, he has worked for many big furniture, fashion and luxury brands. He has designed products for furniture brands such as Glas Italia, Moroso, Cappellini, and more.

He’s produced creations for luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Jil Sander, and Kenzo. Sato has come a long way since establishing his firm in 2002 in Tokyo. In 2015, he nabbed the Designer of the Year award from the Paris Maison & Objet design fair. Now, Nendo is so in demand that his calendar appointments mainly include international museum and gallery shows. In 2016, he held a museum retrospective show called “The Space In Between”, where 100 objects were displayed across six thematic rooms. Maria Cristina Didero, the curator of the show, enthused, “It odd to call it “a retrospective” for a guy who’s not even 40! When he’s 70, we’ll need a whole plaza to display everything he’s done!”

Sato is a very busy guy and is constantly on his toes. His work is diverse: he has had a hand in redesigning the uniforms, logo, slogan, and fan merchandise for his rugby team at his alma mater, Waseda University.

Sato also designed a sake cellar for storing and serving the beverage at optimal temperatures and worked on a 3D-printed paper bonsai tree. In 2008, his “Cabbage” chair, which he designed as a concept for the XXIst Century Man show curated by Issey Miyake, went viral. The translucent texture of the chair was constructed from peeling rolls of pleated paper discarded from Miyake’s Pleats Please collection. Sato manages dozens of designers spread across two floors in his office near Tokyo’s Imperial Palace. Sato’s work is very experimental and hands-on and always pushes the boundaries of Design.
nendo.jp

Lanzavecchia + Wai

Lanzavecchia + Wai may be off the tongues of many Singaporeans, but the Singaporean and Italian creative collaboration is making waves in the design world. London-born Hunn Wai is a Singapore designer. He works with his design partner, Pavia-born Francesca Lanzavecchia, based in Italy. Wai’s design chops have been honed from his time learning industrial Design at the National University. Lanzavecchia attained her B.A. in Product Design from Politecnico di Milano. Their creative fusion occurred when they met at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Netherlands, where they attained their Master’s in Design. In 2010, they formed their eponymous design studio.

With two different cultures and backgrounds, their union produced a pollination of knowledge, ideas, and skills set, creating unique products for brands such as Zanotta, Trussardi, De Castelli, Living Divani, LaCividina, Cappellini, Hermes, Penta Lighting, Gallotti&Radice, Tod’s and Bossa, to name a few.

The duo snagged Elle Decor’s EDIDA Young Design Talent Award 2014. The most recent award was in 2021 for 2021 “Archiproducts Design Award” for the Wave bench designed for De Castelli. Wai is putting Singapore on the global map regarding product design!
https://www.lanzavecchia-wai.com

Nathan Yong

For people working in Singapore’s design industry, Nathan Yong was famous for establishing Air Division in 1999 — one of the first Singaporean companies to sell designs to high-end furniture retailers. However, Yong’s passion for Design and innovation began decades before, during his childhood. He used to find whatever materials he could find by the seaside to construct toys. With the same mindset, he relies on readily available materials when designing furniture today.

Yong received a distinction in Masters of Design from the University of New South Wales. Following his tenure as Air Division’s creative director from 1999 to 2009, he started a furniture company called Folks and a consultancy called Nathan Yong Design, which respects Asian furniture craftsmanship. In terms of scale, Yong emphasises simplicity and function and draws inspiration from the traffic of city life.

Aside from managing his own furniture brand and consulting business, Yong is the design director of Grafunkt. This forward-thinking Singapore-based business specialises in renowned international furniture brands such as Ligne Roset, HAY, Louis Poulsen, Marset, Conde House, and Ariake, to name a few.

In addition to winning the Red Dot Concept Design Award in 2006 and 2007, he was also recognised with the Singapore President’s Design Award in 2008 for Designer of the Year. International design publications such as Case da Abitare, Wallpaper*, Monocle, and Dwell have featured Yong’s works. The Singapore-based designer has designed for brands such as Living Divani, Ligne Roset, Punt, GTV Design, and Opinion Ciatti, to name a few.
https://www.nathanyongdesign.com

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