Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Collection of the Cooper-Hewett Museum. Lisa Taylor-Director. Contents Introduction Japanese swords and their fittings Tsuba (sword guard) Makers of sword furnishings: Major schools and artists Iron tsuba Kyo-sukashi Shoami Umetada Owari Kamakura Kanayama Inlaid iron stuba Onin Heianjo Yoshiro Primarly iron tusba of late Monmeyama and Edo Kaneiye Nobuiye Signed iron tsuba of Muromachi and Momoyama Higo tha Akasaka school Hikonebori Jakushi Kinai Choshu Ito Namban Other Edo period ironworkers Early Kinko tsuba Irogane ko tsuba Kagamishi Kinko tsuba schools Goto Hirata Yokoya Yanagawa Omori Nara Hamano The inlay schools-Kaga and Awa Ichinomiya Iwamoto Ishiguro Mito Natsuo Bibliography Glossary Captions… (more)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum houses a huge collection of objects, and this book features photos of 500 of them, from typewriters to wallpaper, luggage tags to stage designs, and dinner plates to toilets. Everything humans make has design, be it good, bad, or indifferent, but we don’t normally think about it. Does the design of the object serve its purpose, or is it clumsy to use? Is it beautiful as well as practical? Whether the item is primarily designed by an artist or by an engineer, it’s all designed by the human imagination. I loved looking through this book and seeing examples of jewelry, clothing, furniture, cars, tableware, houses, advertising graphics, and more. Short on text but long on pictures, it’s an easy read as an introduction to design. Five stars.… (more)