Tokujin Yoshioka’s Frozen: Sculptures of Light and Time at Milan Design Week 2025
At Milan Design Week 2025, where innovation often takes centre stage, Tokujin Yoshioka offers something radically different—an experience that slowly disappears. Installed within the courtyard of the historic Palazzo Landriani in the Brera Design District, Frozen is a poetic meditation on the ephemerality of nature. The Japanese artist and designer, known for his visionary use of immaterial elements, presents a collection of sculptural chairs made entirely from frozen water—designed not to last but to melt.
At the core of the exhibition is the Aqua Chair, a luminous form crafted through a proprietary slow-freezing process that transforms ultra-transparent blocks of ice into a faceted, refractive sculpture. The chair, weighing 850 kilograms and measuring 120 cm by 100 cm with a height of 89 cm, is not carved but coaxed into existence by the subtle interplay of water and time. Throughout the week, it gradually shifts—its clarity fogged by temperature changes, its surface reshaped by the breeze—until it melts into a shallow pool of memory.
Yoshioka refers to this body of work as Sculptures of Light, highlighting the chair’s ability to refract and emit natural light. It is less a functional object than a lens for observing the transitions of nature. As the ice evolves, so too does its meaning—drawing visitors into a conversation about temporality, transformation, and the invisible forces that shape our physical world.
The installation is presented in collaboration with Grand Seiko Europe and is thoughtfully paired with the brand’s Spring Drive timepieces. Just as Aqua Chair renders time visible through its slow dissolution, Spring Drive articulates time in near-silence with a gliding second hand that echoes the quiet rhythms of nature. The partnership deepens the conceptual dialogue: both chair and watch trace unseen flows—of water, light, and time—with extreme precision and poetic restraint.
Within this year’s Fuorisalone theme, Connected Worlds, Frozen is a work that transcends materiality. Yoshioka’s approach dissolves the boundaries between object and environment, merging craftsmanship with the unpredictability of the elements. Ice becomes both material and metaphor—its fragility is a reminder of nature’s power and impermanence.
On view through April 13, Frozen is not merely an exhibition but an invitation. Visitors are encouraged to slow down, to sit with silence, and to witness the quiet drama of a chair returning to water. In a city overflowing with form and function, Tokujin Yoshioka offers something uniquely fleeting—and unforgettable.
