Toshiyuki Kita, born in 1942, is a Japanese designer trained between Milan and Osaka. He obtained a diploma in Industrial Design in 1964 at Narita College in Japan and began working for an aluminium manufacturer. In 1967, he opened an office in his hometown devoted to lifestyle products and traditional crafts. Kita collaborated from the outset as an environmental and industrial designer for such Italian companies as Bernini and Bilumen. In 1967, he designed the Saruyama armchair for Moroso, giving light to the Saruyama Island collection. In 1966, with Branzi, Corretti and Morozzi, he founded the radical architecture office, Archiom Associati in Florence, which ended its activity in 1972. Since 1969, he has been working in Milan with an office in Corso Garibaldi.
Many of his works are in the permanent collections of international museums like MoMA in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. He has created numerous products for European and Japanese brands, ranging from furniture to LCD TVs, robots (the robot for Mitsubishi Electric is famous), home accessories and household appliances. Among his best-known creations are the Wink Chair (1981) and the Kick Table (1984), both for Cassina, and the Multilingual Chair (Kotobuki Corporation, 1991), used in the Japanese pavilion at the Seville International Exhibition.
Numerous exhibitions have been dedicated to Toshiyuki Kita. In addition to solo shows in Barcelona, Vienna, Helsinki and Singapore, in 2009, at the Milan Furniture Fair, the exhibition 'Kita. Future Delight', and in 2010 'Kita. Timeless Future' were staged at the Milan Triennale. The most recent exhibit, 'Il Lusso Della Natura' at the Church of San Domenico in Alba, Piedmont, was part of the programme of events accompanying Expo 2015 in Milan. In 2006, 2008 and 2009, Kita coordinated a show of the best in Japanese design selected by the prestigious G-Mark Award (Good Design Award) for the show organised by JIDPO (an organisation for promoting Japanese industrial design) for the Fuori Salone in Milan. He has been present at the Salone several times, exhibiting works born from the encounter of natural materials modelled according to the ancient Japanese craft tradition and new eco-friendly technologies. In addition, in 2010, Kita served as Creative Director of the Japanese industrial design pavilion for the Shanghai Expo.
Kita has served as a government advisor to Singapore, Thailand and China, overseeing revitalisation projects in arts and design in those countries. In 1985, he taught at the University of Washington. In 1993, he was visiting professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Since 2004, he has been Head of Design at the Osaka University of Arts and visiting professor at the Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts. In recent years, Kita has devoted himself to education and teaching by holding and participating in seminars and workshops in Japan, Europe and the rest of Asia. He continues with dedication to study traditional arts, such as lacquer (Urushi), papermaking (Washi), and other Japanese crafts. He is the creator and promoter of the international Living&Design fair RENOVETTA in Japan. His publications include 'Power of Design' (Nikkei Publishing Inc., 2007), 'Local Industry + Design' (Gakugei Shuppan-Sha, 2009) and 'Venture for Design 1969 - Why I Went to Italy to Design' (Gakugei Shuppan-Sha, 2012). 'Made with Heart and Soul', a twenty-minute documentary on Kita's forty years of collaboration with local traditional Japanese arts and crafts, was awarded the Gold Prize at the World Media Festival (Public Relations/Culture) in Hamburg, Germany (2012).
He has been honoured with numerous international awards, including the Japan Interior Designers Association Award in 1975, the Product Design Award from the Institute of Business Designers and Contract Magazine in the United States in 1983, and Spain's Delta de Oro in 1990. In 2011, he received the Compasso d'Oro for Lifetime Achievement, boasting not only of being one of the few non-Italian designers to win the prize but also of having been a member of the jury of the prestigious award in 2016. From 2006 to 2008, he was a member of the Red Star Design Award jury in China. In 2017, he gained the title of Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana, and in 2018, he received the Intellectual Property Achievement Award from the Japanese Patent Office.
