Russel Wright Plan: Foundations and Concepts

In the magazine Design News (Kogei News) in 1948, Wright was mentioned second in an article by Shinji Koike (1901-1981) describing the world's top designers where he wrote "Russel Wright has been a pioneer in the creation of a new design world" in which the "American modeling world has achieved truly remarkable growth and development." In this way, interest in Wright quickly began to grow in the Japanese design world right after the war. Before the war, Koike was known as the person who introduced Bauhaus, and he was involved in editing work at the Industrial Arts Research Institute during the war. After the war, he taught in the engineering department of Chiba University, and in 1968, he worked to establish the Kyushu Institute of Design.

At the end of November 1955, Russel Wright visited Japan for about one week before embarking on a tour of Asia3. He visited the Japan Productivity Center (JPC), which had just started in February of that year, and the Japan External Trade Recovery Organization (Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) from 1961) to observe the effectiveness of their activities. On December 5, Wright visited the Industrial Arts Institute in the Tokyo suburbs. Photographs commemorating the event were taken by the Institute, but the purpose of his visit and the content of any talks are unknown. However, the commemorative photographs that were taken by the Institute suggest that he heard explanations of the results of research and development being carried out in the Institute at that time and that he spoke with employees about prototypes (ceramics, lacquer ware, molded plywood tableware). (Figs. 6-9) Wright stated, "Their connection with product design is poor, but their efforts in design are earnest and quite valuable." Wright visited again in February 1956, and he was impressed by the bamboo baskets at fish markets, colorful arrangement of food in cooking, and the flower wreaths used in celebrating store openings, and he sensed the potential in Japanese design. On the other hand, he was disappointed by the mindset of companies such as Nihon Toki in Nagoya that emulated American designs. Based on these observations, Wright commented, "The Japanese have a great design tradition…. Of course, all traditional livelihoods must meet the demands of the 20th century. Each culture can add certain expressions to change and adapt to these conditions." As a result, he says, "I think that the Japanese are throwing away their traditional Japanese handicrafts which took extensive effort to develop. They need to create these works and show their ability as designers to adapt to product designs for 20th century lifestyles." It is clear that Wright's impressions at that time and his expectations for Japanese design became the original outline of the later plan.

In 1955, Wright visited the New York Japan Consul General Hisashi Murata and stated that, "There is a demand for superior Japanese handicrafts in the U.S. market and because they are not competing with U.S. goods, growth of these U.S.-bound exports would be expected. However, at present, the U.S. market is filled only with inferior cheaply crafted products and Americans have not been introduced to anything they truly desire. For that reason, Japan should adopt a thorough policy of promoting U.S.-bound exports." He proposed the following as a concrete plan.

1. Have suitable U.S.-bound export products selected by U.S. specialists from among Japanese regional handicrafts that have yet to be introduced to the U.S. market. For the purpose of this selection, select four U.S. designers and four merchandisers with the assistance of the ICA (U.S. International Cooperation Agency) and send them to Japan to find goods by touring through different areas.

2. Hold a private exhibition in New York of the selected products with the full data needed for trade provided. Limit invitations to this private showing to purchase managers for U.S. department stores and be aggressive in business talks and develop new export routes.

3. In order to popularize Japanese handicrafts among the U.S. public after the private show has ended, continue to hold traveling shows in the U.S. for those products.

4. Wright will collaborate in this plan making sufficient use of his experience and his position in the U.S. market.

This is probably an outline of the main points of the proposal prepared by Wright in the following year entitled "Promotion of the Finest Japanese Handicrafts". The elements of this plan, excluding the U.S. traveling show of (3), were basically executed in their entirety later, indicating that Wright's proposals were extremely practical. In September 1965, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) had already invited J. Guillozet, and for about 20 days, he provided guidance on ceramics, woodcrafts, lacquer ware, and other products for the American market through the eyes of an export buyer. He selected products that could be exported also from prototypes of the Industrial Arts Institute and works exhibited at National Industrial Design Show. Also, Giraldi and Saboka (Fig. 6) visited Japan in July 1957 at the invitation of the Japan Productivity Center for providing guidance in industrial design, and they taught until September. Both of them were recommended by Wright. Murata, who received this proposal, returned to Japan in December 1956 and became the Deputy Minister of the Trade Bureau in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). In that capacity, he made efforts to obtain a budget to carry out the proposal, but he did not meet with immediate success. In May 1958, MITI established a design section, which became responsible for implementing the plan. In fiscal 1959, at last, it became clear that grants and other budget money would be available, and the Russel Wright Committee was started in January 23, 1960, an agency paper was published starting from May, and a written plan was sent to Wright in March. It was decided in September that the visits and selection, which were key points of plan implementation, would be carried out in March and April of the following year. However, approval by the ICA of the employment of Wright himself was having trouble coming through. For this reason, in October, JETRO dispatched overseas project manager Toru Udo for direct talks with the ICA and Wright, and he negotiated with Wright himself in New York. Wright had a meeting on plan implementation with plan headquarters personnel at Haneda Airport en route to Taiwan on December 14. In December 15, a plan promotion request was issued by the Japan Productivity Center to U.S. ambassador Palmer in Japan but in the end, a response came down from the ICA that it would not be possible to dispatch Wright, and so it was decided that other designers would be employed following a schedule that had already been prepared on the Japan side. A request was made of the Japan Trade Center in New York to select people and Diamond, J. Guillozet, and B.B. Zients were chosen. It was also decided that in place of Wright, B. McDermott, L. Lietzke, and M. Rothenberg would also be sent from the ICA, and the outline of the plan was finalized in the middle of December.

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