Just after going independent, he received a request to lead a seminar at the Takaoka Design & Craft Center, in a Toyama city with 400 years of continuous tradition in industry. The idea was to speak about the leading edge of design to the craftsmen who sustained the local lacquer, casting, and glass work.

He lectured to a dozen or so craftsmen, but it was he who came away shaken, after visiting their workshops and watching their handwork firsthand. He was used to furniture workshops, but in the precise, unwasted movements of hands facing materials and techniques passed down without interruption, and in the beauty of their bearing, he sensed something close to reverence.

At the same time, he felt that the Buddhist altar fittings and tea ceremony implements they made had drifted apart from contemporary lifestyles and design. Since his days at Cassina, he had built close relationships with architects and interior designers. "Could this extraordinary skill be installed into the cutting-edge spaces they were creating?" — the hypothesis would not leave his mind.