Shiro Kuramata, Miss Blanche chair, 1988

Kuramata, one of Japan's most distinguished designers, gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s for his furniture designs and commercial interiors. Drawing on the expressive capacities of modern industrial materials such as acrylic, aluminum, and steel mesh, he tapped their psychological effects, creating objects that straddle the line between function and suggestion.

Miss Blanche derives its design from the corsage that Blanche Dubois wore in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. The seat, arms, and back are made of clear acrylic resin in which red silk roses seem to float, an ironic memory of chintz upholstery. The gently curving arms and back are joined and proportioned to stand out as individual elements rather than as parts of a whole. The purple anodized aluminum legs are inserted into slots carved out of the underside of the seat.