Nendo
Tonino Negri
Oki Sato, chief designer and founder of studio Nendo, was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1977. After graduating in Architecture in 2002 from Tokyo’s Waseda University, he founded the Nendo studio, with the emphasis on comprehensive design services. Nendo comprises a team of forty young designers and architects who develop upwards of two hundred projects a year. The firm stands out for its considerable freedom of design, and its ability to turn out simple, practical yet surprising objects and furnishings. In 2005, Nendo opened a branch in Milan and inaugurated another in Singapore in 2012. It has embarked on numerous collaborations with the big-name international design brands. Amongst others, the partnership with Cappellini is a special one which has yielded true icons, as have joint ventures with De Padova, Minotti, Alias, Flos, Baccarat and Louis Vuitton, to name a few. In 2006, Newsweek ranked him among its “100 Most Respected Japanese people”, and to date he has won the most important awards and recognitions in the world of design. Nendo’s projects are displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, and at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Tonino Negri is from Lodi, and lives and works in his hometown, where he runs the Terra Crea workshop-studio. He became interested in ceramics as a traditional and innovative creative form of art at an early age. On several trips abroad, he encountered the world of craftsmanship and art. Since 1980, he has collaborated on projects with artists and craftspeople, all of which feature the openness, curiosity and willingness that have long been his hallmark traits. He also displays a pronounced sensitivity to social issues, embracing areas such as theatre, ceramics, sculpture and stage settings. He creates sculptures as well as large installations using terracotta and other materials. His work is populated by primitive and symbolic characters: animals, house-lamps, island-vases, water bearers, vase-women, deities, arks and jugglers, whilst animals include fish, turtles, pigs, owls and whales to name but a few... Earth, water, fire, and air are the recurring primordial elements that inhabit the archetypal forms of his works. Their pure and perfect forms are silent, yet manage to tell ancient stories steeped in lyricism, at times interjected with a touch of irony.
