k on the task of "guiding private initiatives and coordinating them according to a preestablished plan of its own" (Sato 236). For industrial design, the most important government body was the Institute of Industrial Art, an arm of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). The notion of a separate design function had only arrived with the general program of industrialization. Before this, design activities were a function of every individual practitioner of the traditional Japanese arts and crafts. Design was not recognized as an individual professional activity, nor did the Japanese make the Western distinction between "fine" and "applied" arts (Pekarik 79).
The idea of a design function took hold quickly, however, and, by the turn of the century, professional organizations, such as the Japan Design Association (1901), were formed. In the early part of the century, the German Bauhaus and Deutscher Werkbund were the principal models for emerging Japanese design. But, caught up in rapid modernization, the Japanese were interested in more than new design ideas for new methods of production. The same modernizing impetus affected most of Japanese culture, and the Japanese "sought ways in virtually every aspect of their lives to resolve the tension between the traditional and the modern" (Pekarik 79).
After World War II, Japanese society was in the strange position of depending on the winners of the war for the reconstruction of its economy. Yet, after the trauma of the long war, even an occupying army offered many attractions. "All things American, Jeeps, Coca Cola, chewing gum, Lucky Strike, MP helmets, Max Factor lipsticks, nylon stockings and the smell from US military stores, off limit to Japanese, evoked envy and a longing for luxuries that must have been conceived as belonging to another world" (Kamoshida 4). The great postwar production push began when the Institute of Industrial Art was ordered by th...