Rie Tachikawa Interview May 2026

My father was an architect. I grew up looking at blueprints, not fashion magazines. To me, thread is just a line that forgot to be straight. When you weave enough of those lines, you get a plane. When you fold that plane, you get a room. Textiles are the softest form of architecture.

We spend so much time trying to control the thread. We forget that the thread has its own will to ravel. My last works were a conversation about mortality. You can weave a perfect basket, but entropy always wins. I wanted to make entropy beautiful. rie tachikawa interview

— This interview has been edited for length and clarity from a 2018 conversation. My father was an architect

In the world of Japanese textile art, fabric is rarely just fabric. For (1977–2019), it was architecture, cartography, and memory rolled into one. Before her untimely passing, Tachikawa was a rising star in the intersection of industrial design and fine art, known for turning woven structures into three-dimensional landscapes. When you weave enough of those lines, you get a plane

In this previously unpublished interview from 2018, we sat down with Tachikawa in her Atelier in Setagaya, Tokyo, to discuss how she un-wove the rules of contemporary craft.

I would lock them in the material library. Literally. I told them: "For one hour, you cannot touch a loom. You can only touch the thread. Smell it. Stretch it until it breaks. Burn the end and watch the bead of plastic form."

(Pauses) Yes. In "Unwoven," I stopped pulling the threads tight. I let them hang. I created pieces that were literally falling apart—edges fraying, wefts gaping. My students asked, "Isn't that just damage?" I said, "No. That is honesty."