Yamamoto blue chairs

Storefronts and shop windows should grab attention and pull you in. And despite these optical illusion seats being ultimately “unsitable,” they draw your focus and refuse to allow passers by to walk on without trying to align their two- and three-dimensional components in space.

Continue reading below
Our Featured Videos
Yamamoto chairs art installation

Yoichi Yamamoto created the appearance of backs and seats using recycled wooden chairs and (removable) printed media along the elevated ledge below – from just one perfect angle, everything aligns to complete the perspectival illusory effect.

Yamamoto sunken chairs

Hard to say whether to file these under furniture, art or simply other – like many engaging designs, there is a blurring of boundaries in this project, which, though ultimately commercial, feels as much like an installation piece as shopping propaganda.

Here is Yoichi Yamamoto’s description:

“With the chair standing up from the stage
Chair legs drawn on the stage surface.
When standing at a point in front of the shop window
The three-dimensional back of the chair and the two-dimensional chair legs form an integral image.”

“The theme of Issey Miyake’s clothes making is
Making 3D clothes from 2D cloth.
The concept was expressed as an installation that oscillated between two and three dimensions.

Yamamoto chairs in storefront

date : 2011.06
type : Installation
status : completed
location : ginza , Tokyo
floor area : 11.5m2
coordinate : moph inc.
photo : yoichi yamamoto”

A similar Yamamoto project for the same Issey Miyake boutique involved larger than life chairs, strewn about in much the same way:

Yamamoto Issey Miyake chairs

“Elements consisting of lines and planes are floating.
They look random, but at a certain point in front of the window
Only when you stand, make a chair.
It is an attempt to provide modest discoveries and surprises to those who cross the street.”

“Following ‘2D / 3D Chairs’ announced three years ago,
Issey Miyake’s theme of making clothes
The concept of making 3D clothes from 2D cloth and its constructability,
Expressed as an installation.”