[ The Waterfall ] an invisible bar in heart of Tokyo.

The waterfall

The waterfall was created by a group of men for a public display space in the heart of Tokyo in 2006. The architecture was designed by Tadao Ando 安藤忠雄 and the “waterfall” optical glass bar was designed by Tokujin Yoshioka 吉岡德仁 and installation was performed by Olafur Eliasson. Together, this group of men created what appears to be a bar made from water. Using an optical glass block, the same material used in larger observatory telescopes and that is worked entirely by hand. By nature, and because of the way it is shaped, the glass has a rippled surface that accentuates the impression of seeing a liquid that has frozen over, rather than an actual solid. When approaching the table, a feeling of instability takes hold of the visitor, who has the sensation of having to sit down in a void, or better on a wobbly, liquid substance that seems as if it could flow away like the water of a Waterfall.

About the Waterfall designer
Tokujin Yoshioka was born in saga prefecture, japan in 1967. After graduating from kuwasawa design school in tokyo, he studied design under shiro kuramata (1987-1988) and issey miyake (1988-1992) and went free-lance in 1992. He then founded Tokujin Yoshioka Design in 2000. Tokujin started out at a very young age and went on to develop prototypes and numerous displays for Issey Miyake in the ’90s, then he was practically discovered and revealed to the world by Driade, the first company to exhibit his amazing Honey Pop series and successively began an intense round of design collaboration for mass- produced furniture.
This is where Tokujin succeeds in attaining the most challenging of equilibriums, over which many designers of art spaces stumble headlong: the mating of “functionless” artwork and “functional” interior design in a union where neither is allowed to steal the show.

The waterfall by day