A Message from the Director
The World Book Design Exhibition 2015-16 is now underway.
The season of the World Book Design Exhibition has arrived once again. In addition to exhibiting the World's Most Beautiful Book selected in the design competition, the Museum is displaying a collection of 180 prize-winning entries from six countries: Germany, Holland, China, Austria,Canada, and Japan. As in previous exhibitions, all of the works eloquently reflect the latest innovations and trends in book design from the past year.
Meanwhile, Japan's Book Making and Binding Competition has reached its 50th anniversary milestone. The Museum has selected about 50 prize-winning works from competitions held over the years. The changes of the works year by year vividly illustrate the flow of times.
While book readership may seem to be waning, beautiful books are still alive. Exhibit visitors are invited to experience the beauty of books by freely touching, holding, and perusing works from the exhibit in their own hands. We hope you will visit, as well.
Koichi Kabayama
Director
Printing Museum, Tokyo
Director's Profile
Koichi Kabayama
Director
Printing Museum, Tokyo
Born in Tokyo in 1945. Graduated from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo in 1965, and after completing the masters degree course at the university became a research assistant at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University in 1969. Became an assistant professor at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo in 1976, and later became a professor. Served as the Director-General of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo from 2001, becoming Director of the Printing Museum, Tokyo in 2005, a position he still holds. His fields of specialization are Western history and Western cultural history.