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Sho Takahashi's World

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4. Nanotechnology

Sho Takahashi is now intent on taking the concepts and discoveries of mathematics and applying them in the fields of design, engineering and art, on all scales between those of mega-engineering and nano-technology. Recently he has come across the new field of periodic minimal surfaces, first reconnoitred by H. A. Schwarz in the 1860s, and has taken the opportunity of presenting these shapes at this centre of Nano-technology, hoping that these new forms will find applications. These shapes or structures represent solutions looking for problems rather than problems looking for solutions. At the same time, with a characteristic Sino-Japanese reverence for the written character, Takahashi links physical shapes with iconic thought, particularly with the associations embedded in Chinese characters and by implication in those of other writing systems.

These three-dimensional forms, discovered or revealed rather than created, are natural absolutes like the Platonic solids and are more complex than those used by his distinguished predecessor Isamu Noguchi and present many challenges to manufacturing technology.