HARA DESIGN INSTITUTE

To make something small is not simply to exercise patience. Japan has discovered value and beauty in the act of making things efficient and concise. This sense is leveraged in car manufacturing as well.

It’s said that in 2020, cars will run on alternative fuels derived from resources other than petroleum, alternative energies like electricity, hydrogen and bioethanol. With the increase in environmental consciousness, these technologies that will surpass fossil fuels have started to mature.

It’s no longer a transportation system in which individual cars are controlled by their drivers; Cities control the transportation system and the future of mobility, and both are changing. The essence of the automobile is beginning to change, from a driving system to an information system.

We asked Visual Design Studio WOW and artist Akira Yamaguchi to produce work based on the image of JAPAN CAR. WOW created an animated film titled “The View from There”, superimposing Tokyo’s contemporary (westernized) environment onto old urban structures. Mr. Yamaguchi drew Oyamazaki Kotsu no Zu, a transportation map vividly depicting in fine detail an imaginary city in which bizarre cars form a traffic jam, reminding us of Kyoto’s scenery on the medieval illustrated folding screen known as Rakuchu rakugai zu (Scenes in and around the Capital).