Rio Kobayashi: 'I've never been to university, so for me, every project is a kind of learning'

Rio Kobayashi first discovered that furniture design could be a career as a teenager, while flicking through the interiors special of a fashion magazine. In his self-sufficient childhood home in Japan, furniture and objects were rather more practical than worthy of filling glossy pages – his Japanese father is a potter and housebuilder, his Austrian mother is a conservationist and master gilder who took to growing organic vegetables to feed the family. Their rural location meant making things was often easier than driving to get them. ‘It wasn’t exactly a commune,’ he says, ‘but as you can imagine, I've always grown up making. To create things is in my genes.’

Now based in London as an independent designer-maker (and growing a keen following after his London Design Festival solo show Manus Manum Lavat – Latin for ‘one hand washes the other’ – in 2023), Kobayashi’s characterful and colourful works continue to be influenced by his unusual upbringing. ‘My sense of style definitely comes from my childhood,’ he says. ‘My parents had many visitors from all over the world, and they seemed to be a bit crazy. They all had a strong style and I still really admire people who have their own way of thinking.’

Perhaps some of those characters have made their way into works such as Head Shelf (2022), a charismatic private commission in cedar and cherry wood, or Kaijyu, a fearsome mask made for SEEDS gallery in 2019, with flaring nostrils and a long red tongue reminiscent of samurai facial armour. Paper Mobile (2018) is also inspired by strange physiognomies: an assembly of delicate coloured paper hangs from beech arches, with abstracted lips, eyes and noses that compose themselves into friendly facial configurations as they move.

Though Kobayashi always had an instinct for making, it took a three-year apprenticeship with furniture company Wetscher in Tyrol, Austria, to formalise his craft. After graduating from technical high school (and ‘mostly to avoid looking for a job’), Kobayashi went to visit his Austrian grandmother who encouraged him to take up the post. The company made its own product lines, but also those of high-end Italian design companies: the kind of icons he had seen in those magazines growing up. He says: ‘It was very good to learn furniture making professionally because it really adds a level of understanding and skill. You can sell something as a piece of work because it has refinement and precision.’

The experience of working to Wetscher’s exacting standards was a good influence, but creating under his own name affords Kobayashi greater freedom to experiment. ‘There, I learned a lot about how to make a piece perfect, to a plan,’ he says. ‘If you cut something five millimetres too short, you have to start over. But when you are designing and making at the same time, you can make mistakes. Mistakes in the making process can be very inspiring and can actually turn out not to be mistakes after all. I make lots of them – mistakes are human.’

Making errors with wood is also cheaper than having mishaps with materials he has less experience with. To combat the expense of setting up in London, he has opted to work on things he doesn’t need expertise to make. ‘I can create something quickly in wood, and manage it by myself,’ he says. ‘Glass and metal are really difficult to get star ted with. You have to do a design and ask other people to make it. It’s a risk, especially if you're not confident about the work.’

A more natural way for the designer-maker to explore other materials has been collaborating with friends. With Zürich-based designer Flavia Brändle, he makes a line of modular lights called Furikake, which combines her knowledge about textiles and lighting, with his technique in bending wood by precisely cutting it at predetermined positions. Manus Manum Lavat was a solo show of sorts, but more a celebration of the many collaborations Kobayashi makes with artists, makers and designers, all of whom he calls friends. Fish Table (Fatty Tuna), 2019, was a giant eccentric centrepiece for the show that was hard to ignore – the surface of the oak table features a hand-painted fish by artist James Hague, while its legs resemble the shapes of sharks’ fins. Piece of Cake sofa was another collaboration with Brändle, featuring a Battenberg-like palette of yellow and pink, and plush upholstered cubes. ‘It's more fun to do things together, you can share a feeling that leads to something,’ he explains of his thirst for collaboration. ‘I've never been to university, so for me, everything, every project, every new material, is a kind of learning.’

Kobayashi also counts his clients as friends. He’s recently completed an interior for the home of American visual artist Christine Sun Kim and has an ongoing relationship with audio company Wiener Lautsprecher Manufaktur, based on a shared love of music. He makes speaker and equipment housings for them that look more like bespoke skate or surfboards, blending graphic shapes, bold colours and marquetry techniques for an arresting visual quality to match the sound experience.

Friends have also pushed Kobayashi to make work under his own name. After the apprenticeship, he moved to London to work for Austrian designer Georg Oehler. Eighteen months in, Oehler told him amiably he ‘had too much taste’ to work for anyone else and ‘should do his own stuff ’. Going it alone hasn’t always felt comfortable though; another reason for the collegiate approach of Manus Manum Lavat. In 2017, after initially committing to show his Mikado furniture at London Design Festival, the designer-maker wanted to backtrack, using lack of funds as an excuse. When the organisers offered him a substantial discount, he knew he had to go ahead. Visitor reaction was positive, but it still took another six years for Kobayashi to get the confidence to show solo at the festival again.

As the commissions and offers to exhibit his work pile in off the back of 2023’s London Design Festival success (including a sideshow for the Design Museum’s Enzo Mari exhibition opening this year), Kobayashi may yet learn to trust himself more. For many emerging makers, self-confidence comes with graduation from higher education. But with university costs rising, that’s not an option for many young people. Hopefully those in that situation will be inspired to hear of a maker who has made the journey on his own, using charisma and talent to forge friendships, and learn on the job. ‘I always thought it wasn’t possible to get involved in this world without going to university,’ he says. ‘[But the university experience] can make you play it safe. I see lots of designs that are easy to produce but say nothing about personality. Okay, it's a nice little chair. But what's the twist? What makes it you?’

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