Design critic. Professor Emeritus at Musashino Art University and Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Art. Born in Kobe in 1946. Graduated from Musashino Art University. After working as an editor, became an associate professor at Tokyo Zōkei University in 1983. Started at his current position in 1996. His works include Design no 20 seiki (The 20th Century of Design) (NHK Shuppan, 1992), Housework no seiji gaku (The Politics of Housework) (Seidosha, 1995), and Nichijitsu no bunka shi (The Cultural History of Daily Items) (Iwanami Shoten, 1999). He is the author of Modern Design Critique (Iwanami Shoten, 2002), Cultural Theory of ‘Shikiri’ (Kodansha, 2004), The Life Force of Visual Culture (Iwanami Shoten, 2017), and many others.