This was the exhibition that originally coined the term “Re-Design.” When asked how he would redesign toilet paper, the architect Shigeru Ban responded that he would make the core square in shape. Compared to the existing round-core products, the gaps between rolls when stacked together would be smaller, contributing to saving space during transport and storage. The resistance and rattling sound when the paper is pulled out would serve as a reminder to conserve resources. As soon as I heard this idea, the concept of toilet paper suddenly seemed new and interesting.

The “Re-Design” show, planned by Kenya Hara, was a part of the Takeo Paper Show that was held by the paper company Takeo in 2000 to commemorate Takeo’s 100th anniversary. 32 creators, including graphic designers, product designers, fashion designers, and authors, responded to questions about how they would redesign products from everyday life.

The starting point for “Re-Design” occurred at Takeo Paper World in 1994 when an exhibition of the same name was planned. This idea was later taken up again due to the urgent need to question the proper direction of design at the start of the 21st century. Therefore it was decided that the purpose of this exhibition would not be for top-class designers to improve the designs of everyday products, but rather as shown by Shigeru Ban’s answer above, to change our awareness of items which have become too familiar and therefore less visible to us, and to make their true nature visible to us as if we were encountering them for the first time. It was intended to be a wake-up call to everyday life.

Everyday products such as toilet paper and matches have traveled through long histories before arriving at their present-day forms, and one might think that there is no room left for design. Even so, the designs which are proposed through the “Re-Design” process show some clear differences. It is precisely because of these differences that I think there are social values and problems which design should address... It was the primary purpose of this exhibition to identify differences such as these. 32 creators took a flexible approach to achieving this objective, and in order to ensure a precise expression of the differences, the exhibited products were finished to be as similar as possible to the existing products.

The contents of the exhibition were collected in the book RE DESIGN Nichijo no 21 Seiki (Re-Design of Everyday Life for the 21st Century), which was published at the same time as the exhibition. This was the origin of the Hara Design Institute’s production method which carried out exhibition production simultaneously with book editing. This method was later adapted and used in other activities.

After being shown in four major Japanese cities, “Re-Design” became a traveling exhibition which over two years was held in Glasgow, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Toronto, Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen. The exhibition also led to new discoveries: at workshops held by the enthusiastic museums for local elementary and junior high school students, lessons for design were discovered in the intuitive design approach of the children. In Glasgow, the exhibition was visited by more than 20,000 persons, and in Toronto the popularity of the event led it to be extended by two months. The reaction exceeded our expectations, and gave us the feeling that there are shared expectations of design that are the same throughout the world.

After “Re-Design,” the fields where design is functioning have continued to grow. Design represents a kind of knowledge that can bring balance to the world, an intelligence in search of peace for the senses. A true essence which all people can share is something that can be discovered if we adopt the attitude of carefully observing the everyday values and problems that we take for granted.

The quest for true meaning that led to the proposal of “square toilet paper” is something that can only be clearly understood and retransmitted through an exhibition – an event where visitors visit and sense the exhibits for themselves. That search for the true essence continues to slowly expand today.

Kaoru Matsuno
Born in Tokyo in 1974. Joined NDC in 2001 after graduating from the State University of New York at Buffalo. As a member of the Hara Design Institute, currently works with books and packaging, travels overseas for total coordination of production and operation for exhibitions, and is in charge of overseas projects.