MESSAGES

A special message for OSAKA DESIGN WEEK 2026.

AMBASSADOR

Yuko Nagayama

Yuko Nagayama Architect / Yuko Nagayama & Associates

OSAKA DESIGN WEEK was launched last year as its inaugural “Edition 0,” coinciding with Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, as an event that brings together and expands a creative community centered around design, with the city of Osaka itself as its stage.

This year marks its first official edition, and I am delighted to see the event growing even further.

I hope OSAKA DESIGN WEEK will continue to evolve, shaping its own identity and exploring what it can become, while creating more opportunities for people to connect, exchange ideas, and inspire one another.

An acclaimed architect known for her distinctive sensibility, weaving light and the Japanese concept of “ma” — the art of space and pause — into her designs. Her diverse body of work spans commercial spaces, residences, pavilions, and more, earning her widespread recognition both in Japan and internationally.

PROFILE

Born in Tokyo in 1975. Nagayama worked at Jun Aoki & Associates from 1998 to 2002 before establishing Yuko Nagayama & Associates in 2002.

She served as a visiting professor at Musashino Art University from 2020 to 2024 and has served as Vice Chair of the Good Design Award Jury since 2023.

Her major works include LOUIS VUITTON Daimaru Kyoto, Teshima Yokoo House, Megami no Mori Central Garden, and the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. More recent projects include Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, the Women’s Pavilion and Panasonic Group Pavilion “The Land of NOMO” at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.

Her awards include the JIA Young Architect Award (2014), Yamanashi Architecture Culture Award, Tokyo Architecture Award – Award of Excellence (2018), Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan Lighting Design Award – Grand Prize (2021), and World Architecture Festival – Highly Commended (2022).

She is currently working on several major projects, including Torch Tower.
https://www.yukonagayama.co.jp/

SPECIAL AMBASSADOR

Michele De Lucchi

Michele De Lucchi Architect

I am very happy that Osaka now has its own Design Week.

Today, design is no longer only about the objects we produce, but about everything we can do to improve the way we live. It is an increasingly broad field, encompassing architecture, interiors, the city, communication, technology, fashion, food and, ultimately, even the way we imagine our future.

Any constructive, positive and forward-looking thought is an act of design.

For this reason, I believe that a Design Week should not simply be a place to present projects, but above all an opportunity to bring people, ideas and different disciplines together. It is through these encounters that design can continue to grow and find new directions.

And I believe that a Design Week really works when it succeeds in involving an entire city. This is what happens, for example, in Milan during Milan Design Week. Presentations, exhibitions, screenings and shop windows bring the Design Week to life, but outdoor restaurants, bars, cafés, galleries and museums also become places to meet, to exchange ideas, to compare different perspectives and to discover something new. Many visitors who come to Milan for Design Week discover not only design, but also the city: its energy, its curiosity and its openness.

Osaka is a city particularly suited to this. It is a vibrant, curious city, open to exchange, with a long culture of making and innovation.

I wish Osaka Design Week continued growth and success, and hope it will become an increasingly important place for different cultures and different ways of thinking about design to meet, involving more and more of the city and the people who live in it.

My very best wishes for the success of Osaka Design Week.

Michele De Lucchi

PROFILE

Architect, designer and artist

One of the leading members of Alchimia and Memphis, he served as Design Director of Olivetti from 1988 to 2002. In 1987 he received the Compasso d’Oro Award, and he designed the Tolomeo lamp for Artemide, one of the best-selling lighting fixtures in the world. In addition to designing furniture for many leading Italian and European companies, he has realized architectural projects around the world in a wide range of fields, including cultural facilities, offices, industrial buildings and residences.

In 2000, he was awarded the title of Ufficiale of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. In 2001 he became a professor at the University IUAV of Venice, and in 2006 Kingston University awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2008 he became a professor in the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano and was elected a member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome. In 2018 he served as guest editor of the architecture and design magazine Domus, and in 2022 he received the Compasso d’Oro Career Award.

In 2024 he was elected an academician of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence and was also awarded the title of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2025 he became an “Asahikawa Special Design Ambassador.”

For more than 20 years, in his workshop in Milan and Angera, he has continued to create drawings and paintings as well as wooden objects and models. Through these activities he explores the essence of architectural form, and this thinking and practice have become an important source of inspiration for his own architecture and design projects.

In 2003, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris acquired a large number of his works, and his representative design works are held in the collections of major museums around the world, including in Europe, the United States and Japan.

Michele De Lucchi is the founder and a core member of AMDL CIRCLE, an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary design studio. AMDL CIRCLE is known worldwide for its human-centered, humanistic approach, working across architecture, interiors, product design, graphics and more, and delivering projects for clients that combine expressiveness with strategy. It also carries out ongoing research on the future of architecture and its social responsibility, aiming not merely to accept the changes of the times but, wherever possible, to generate that change itself and to conceive projects that open up the future.
https://www.micheledelucchi.it/

COLLABORATORS

Hirofumi Yoshimura

Hirofumi Yoshimura Governor of Osaka Prefecture

Heartfelt congratulations on the opening of “OSAKA DESIGN WEEK 2026.”

Through Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, exchanges with countries around the world advanced greatly across culture, diplomacy, and business. Building on these achievements, Osaka is now entering a new phase, creating and sharing new individuality and value as it moves toward its next leap forward. I am very pleased that an international event bringing together diverse and distinctive creative fields such as architecture, interiors, fashion, and art will be held across the entire city of Osaka.
I sincerely hope this event will become an opportunity to share Osaka’s unique appeal, worthy of global attention, with audiences in Japan and abroad.

Hideyuki Yokoyama

Hideyuki Yokoyama Mayor of Osaka City

In this commemorative year marking the 160th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Republic of Italy and the 45th anniversary of the Osaka-Milan sister city partnership, I am truly pleased that this event, modeled on Milan Design Week, will be held and create new bonds between the two cities.
Following Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, which welcomed many visitors from around the world, exchanges with overseas partners are expanding across many fields. Through this event, I hope Osaka’s appeal as a creative city will be shared widely with the world and that exchange in the field of design will be further promoted.

Shinya Hashizume

Shinya Hashizume Professor Emeritus, Osaka Metropolitan University
President, Japan Federation of Commercial Technology Associations
President, Living Architecture Museum Osaka

From the Taisho era to the early Showa era, Osaka grew into the “greatest commercial and industrial city in the East,” with the fifth-largest population in the world, and its citizens proudly called it “Dai-Osaka” (Greater Osaka). Backed by economic prosperity, some of the world’s most advanced buildings lined the city center. In the fields of commercial and advertising design as well, Osaka produced outstanding talents. It is fair to say that Osaka at that time was one of the world’s leading “design cities.” We want to make Osaka’s own design shine once again and present it to the world as the “capital of design.”

Chiaki Murata

Chiaki Murata Chairman, Osaka Design Center
Chairman, Japan Industrial Design Association (JIDA)

Osaka is home to a diverse collection of design resources: design organizations, educational institutions, companies, designers, and world-class manufacturing technologies and materials. Each is doing wonderful work, and if their vectors were aligned, Osaka’s design power could realize even greater potential. I want to make OSAKA DESIGN WEEK a “place” where these “points” connect and generate new value and innovation, and to make Osaka a city that attracts the world’s attention through the power of design. Osaka Design Center will also act as a hub, working together with all of you.

Miho Utsumi

Miho Utsumi Vice Chairman, Osaka Design Center

Having long worked with local companies and industries, I have come to feel that sustainable growth requires not only technology and capital but also the “ability to envision new value.” Design is the power to grasp changes in people and society, to re-examine a company’s strengths, and to create future value. I would like to spread that power further to Osaka’s mid-sized and small companies and local industries. Through the power of design, companies change, regions change, and society becomes richer. I would like to build such a future from Osaka together with all of you.

Hinako Kawakami

Hinako Kawakami Professor, Department of Living and Environmental Design
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Setsunan University

It is widely known that Osaka has achieved remarkable economic growth through its manufacturing industries and vibrant commercial activity. Yet underlying this development has always been a rich and dynamic culture of design, evolving hand in hand with the city’s progress.

Looking back, it seems almost historically inevitable that Osaka should have formed a sister-city partnership with Milan, one of the world’s leading cities of design. The relationship between the two cities represents an exceptionally natural and ideal form of cultural collaboration.

Much like Milano Design Week, Osaka Design Week is founded on a commitment to carrying the culture of design forward to future generations. It is my sincere hope that this vision will resonate deeply and widely with all those who visit, and that it will continue to be embraced and passed on for many generations to come.

Hanako Kita

Hanako Kita International Exchange and Public Relations Advisor

I have worked in international relations and public relations with companies, cultural institutions, and media, mainly in Italy. Through Osaka Design Week, I hope new encounters and co-creation will emerge, leading to a rich future where design lives within everyday life and society as culture. I would be honored to contribute in any small way by drawing on the experience and network I have built over the years.

Nobuyuki Narigasawa

Nobuyuki Narigasawa Designer
 / Representative Director, NOBU ARCHI DESIGN Inc.
Advisor, UNESCO Creative City of Design Asahikawa Promotion Council

Since Milan Salone and Fuorisalone resumed in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic, I have continued in-depth reporting and filming there. Through video distribution and screenings in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Hokkaido, I have shared the latest from Milan Design Week, one of the world’s largest design events, with more than 1,000 people each year. Holding Osaka Design Week in 2026, the year marking the 45th anniversary of Osaka’s sister city partnership with Milan, is a highly meaningful challenge. Bringing Milan’s creative energy to Osaka, and sending Osaka’s creativity to the world, I sincerely hope that design will connect people, companies, and the city, giving rise to new culture and value.

FOUNDER'S Founders

Junzo Tateno

Junzo Tateno President and Representative Director, UNION CORPORATION JAPAN
Representative Director, General Incorporated Association OSAKA DESIGN WEEK

Video Message

OSAKA DESIGN WEEK is a project that presents design not merely as surface aesthetics or expression, but as a driving urban force that connects diverse creative activities—including architecture, interior design, art, fashion, food, and monozukuri (Japanese craftsmanship).

Osaka is home to a wealth of world-class technologies, culture, and human talent. By illuminating these assets and fostering dynamic exchanges with creators and enterprises both domestically and internationally, we will generate new opportunities for value creation.

Looking beyond the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, we are taking on the challenge of realizing a "Creative City Osaka" that commands the world’s attention.

Video Message

Toshiaki Nishioka

Toshiaki Nishioka Chairman and Representative Director, SANEI LTD.
Executive Director, General Incorporated Association OSAKA DESIGN WEEK

Video Message

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your continued interest and cooperation in our activities.

Initiated by Osaka’s manufacturing companies, "OSAKA DESIGN WEEK" is a lifestyle event set in this vibrant city. It takes a multifaceted approach to the essential aspects of living—clothing, food, and housing—alongside culture, tradition, art, and technology. By providing a platform to propose, exhibit, and experience these elements, we aim to connect them to our core theme of "Co-creation."

In collaboration with the City of Osaka, which is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its sister-city affiliation with Milan, Italy—a global capital of design—we strive to promote regional revitalization through this initiative.

At this year’s inaugural and commemorative event, I look forward to sharing a time with all of you that will truly "resonate with the five senses."

Video Message