Japanese design on the wall: photographs for offices, lobbies and hotels

Art in a workplace has an unusual brief. It must give a space character, and it must ask nothing of the people who pass it every day — no argument, no discomfort, no joke that wears thin by March. It has to speak to visitors from anywhere, and still hold a second look in the tenth year.

The photographs of Ikki Mitsuhashi were made by someone trained for exactly that brief.

A designer's photographs

Mitsuhashi joined the Nippon Design Center in 1965. The studio had been founded in 1959 by Yusaku Kamekura, Hiromu Hara and Ikko Tanaka, with companies such as Asahi Beer and Toyota behind it, and it was where Japanese corporate identity was invented. He went on to art-direct campaigns for Lufthansa and Kanebo before turning to photography in 1972.

That training is visible in every picture of *Tropical Garden*, the series he began in Ubud, Bali in 2003: one subject, one vessel, a pale ground, and nothing in the frame that does not need to be there. It is the discipline of a good logo applied to a lotus leaf.

Why these pictures work in shared spaces

• Nothing to disagree with. Plants, vessels and light. No people, no text, no politics, no brand but the work itself.
• Legible across cultures. A lotus, a banana flower, a coconut: images a visitor from Tokyo, Frankfurt or Singapore reads the same way.
• Calm, not bland. Each picture has a turn in it — a flower bowing, a leaf held up like a parasol — that rewards the hundredth look.
• Made to be seen as a set. The same white columns, stoneware and frosted glass recur across the series, so several works hang together as one designed collection rather than a scatter of purchases.

Which work for which space

Reception and lobbies. The largest sheet, 18 × 24 inches, in colour. Parasol, The Banana Flower and Written in the Air hold a wall on their own.

Meeting rooms. A pair: the same subject in colour and in monochrome, such as Foliage, Colour and Foliage, Monochrome, or Leaning Together with its monochrome companion. The pairing starts conversations without taking them over.

Corridors and stairwells. A row of the smaller sheets, hung at one height. Because every print keeps the same fixed side margins for its size, a row lines up exactly.

Hotels, clinics and wellness spaces. The quietest pictures: One Leaf, Tradescantia & Celadon, Resting.

Parasol

A Single Star

The Spire

A Japanese design collection

For a company that wants its art to say something about how it thinks, one way in is to buy by idea rather than by picture. Four works share the same device — a plain column lifting a plant into view: Gathering, Parasol, The Banana Flower and Held Aloft. Hung together they read as a small study in a single design idea, which is how Japanese design often works: one move, repeated with care.

How companies buy

• Editions and certificates. Every print is numbered in a limited edition and comes with a bilingual certificate of authenticity — a clean record for an asset register.
• Several prints. Orders of multiple works, or one work across several locations, are priced as trade orders; Ikki Club members receive 10%.
• Sizes and papers. Four sizes up to 18 × 24 inches, on cotton fine-art papers; other papers and project-specific sizes on request.
• Delivery. Printed to order in Tokyo and shipped rolled in a rigid tube, in Japan and worldwide. We recommend framing close to the site.
• Using an image beyond the wall. Annual reports, interiors, packaging and campaigns are licensed by separate agreement; see image rights.

Ten kinds of space — reception, boardroom, lobby, suite, residence, model room, restaurant, clinic and ryokan — are visualised with the actual works on Art in use.

To plan a space, a series or a quotation, write to us from the home page and choose "Several prints, trade or project", or email info@ikkimitsuhashi.com. The gallery wall shows every work at the size it is printed, which makes it easy to try a wall before deciding.