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Serial: Auxiliary Lines for Things & People, #01: Perfume of Architecture
PROFILE
Mai Tsunoo / Design Writer
After graduating from Keio University’s Faculty of Environmental Information, she worked at a manufacturer, and from 2012 to 2016, she assisted designer engineer Shunji Yamanaka. After that, she spent a year in Scotland and is now working as a freelancer.
While exploring expressions to communicate what needs to be conveyed without hesitation, she is engaged in writing for media such as "Nikkei Design," as well as exhibition curating and copywriting.
Her main works include the 70th Anniversary Exhibition of the University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science, "POTENTIALITIES: Exhibition For A Possible Future" (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2018), and writing texts for the exhibition "Insect: Models for Design" (21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, 2019).
There are broadly two types of scents that people encounter. One is what people wear, and the other is what floats in the space. Just as Gabrielle Chanel likened perfume to an accessory that cannot be forgotten, if we consider perfume as fashion appealing to the sense of smell, then the scents proposed in this exhibition belong to spatial design.
Recently, I attended an exhibition called "ARCHITECTURE × SCENTING DESIGN." The project posed the question: What if architects created scents for their own architectural works? Six sets of architects proposed scents for six buildings.
Interestingly, as I began writing this text, I realized that there seems to be no overarching term for "scents to be applied in spaces." Each item like aroma oils and incense has its own name, but there doesn't seem to be a term similar to Erik Satie's "furniture music" or modern "ambient music." If I had to categorize it, it might be called room fragrance, but in this case, it is meant for spaces that cannot be classified as rooms. Perhaps it should be called space fragrance. The organizer of this exhibition, @aroma, refers to the creation of scents for spaces as "scenting design."
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