American consumption of Japanese design and development of Japanese modern during the occupation and cold war

Design history and study in the 21st century is experiencing transition that sees a shifting of its scope from the Anglocentric to the global. In this current, East Asia has been recognised as a unigonorable other centre of modern design development. The current agenda of design history and study is focused on how we can engage this discipline’s methodological and critical approach with non-Anglophone studies, while accumulating empirical data of indigenous development in these areas. By addressing this design history agenda, the aim is to demonstrate one approach by which we can link up national and transnational design development. It will focus on American design intervention in Asia, in particular Japan during the Occupation and Cold War period, and examine how the development of modern design in East Asia is entwined with the North American interest in Asia. I will discuss the changing image and taste for Japanese craft design through the American intervention in Japanese craft design for export from the Occupation period through to American designer Russel Wright’s project; secondly, I will discuss the idea of ‘Asian Modern’ and its relation with American design identity; and finally, I will look at Hollywood films as a disseminating agent for popularizing American taste for Japan and Japanese craft design.