The Architects and Artists Who Shaped My Creative Framework Vol: 1

I have always felt that watches are not only about hours and minutes, not only about something quietly ticking away as we live our days. They are much more than that. They are about space, proportion, and the spirit that lives in objects. Objects we encounter every day — a chair, a stone, a brushstroke, a watch. From a young age I looked closely, with curiosity, at how artists and architects left their mark on these objects, how their visions reshaped my sense of design. Each encounter stayed with me, each one shaping the way

I now create for Hitori.

Lee Ufan's collaboration Octo Finissimo with Bulgari (Source: Monochrome)

Lee Ufan was one of the first to show me that silence can be as powerful as form. His Relatum installations — sometimes just a single stone placed beside a pane of glass — revealed that absence has its own voice. The emptiness between gestures holds meaning, just as a dial does. His collaboration with Bulgari on the Octo Finissimo was a reminder of this truth. In sandblasted titanium, with its crisscross surface echoing his rock and mirror works, the watch felt alive with reflection and silence. With no inscriptions on the dial, only dark openworked hands gliding across emptiness, it captured how restraint and space can become the true language of design.

Church of Light by Tadao Ando (Source: Architectuul)

Tadao Ando deepened this lesson for me. His architecture showed me that concrete could soften under light, that weight could become poetry. The Octo Finissimo he created with Bulgari proved that even a thin case on the wrist can hold the gravity of a building. A piece of architecture distilled into steel and glass. There is a purity in those all-titanium cases that feels inseparable from Ando’s work, yet at the same time it is unmistakably Bulgari. His take on the Serpenti, An Ode to the Seasons, pushed further into metaphor, turning time itself into a reflection of nature’s renewal. These are not just watches, they are philosophical objects.

Rem Koolhaas taught me that design does not always need harmony. His philosophy embraces disruption, reminding me that relevance often comes from fracture and surprise. I think of him when I allow a case line to take an abrupt angle, or when I resist smoothing away a sharpness too soon. It is in those unexpected choices that character is born.

The Indefinite Hangar: Prada Spring/Summer 2016 Men’s Show in Milan, by Rem Koolhaas (Source: bestinteriordesigners)

Villa Savoye near Paris, by Le Corbusier (Source: ArchEyes)

Le Corbusier offered another compass. His principles of light, proportion, openness, and elevation shaped homes and cities, but I see them just as clearly in watches. A dial that feels open is like an open plan room. A case that reflects light well becomes alive in motion. A bracelet that breathes between skin and steel carries the same grace as pilotis lifting a house above the earth. His language of proportion and space is timeless, and I carry it forward whenever I work on form.

Ai Yoshida showed me serenity. Her interiors dissolve the line between inside and outside until you feel at ease in both. That balance of comfort and continuity is something I try to give to Hitori watches. A watch should not only sit on the wrist but feel like part of the person, natural, calm, as though it belongs.

NOT A HOTEL MINAKAMI by Ai Yoshida and Makoto Tanjiri (Source: notahotel)

I view every artistic touch as the birth of an object that carries a feeling beyond words. Something that prevails quietly yet raises emotions each time it is encountered. That is the gift of art and design. They leave behind objects that move us in ways we cannot always explain, but we know to be true.

Marc Newson carried that gift into Ikepod. His cases felt organic, almost human, yet with an industrial clarity that revealed how tenderness could live within machine forms. Ulrich Schärer spoke a similar language through USM, and his Zenith collaboration made it clear that modular design and precision could also be poetic. Both showed me that charm and utility are not separate qualities, they can coexist seamlessly.

Australian Designer Marc Newson wearing a Chronopod (Source: Vanityfair)

Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (Source: Mrstateless)

Giugiaro taught me flair. His Italian touch shaped cars like the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Alfa Romeo 2600 with sculpted speed and presence. When he turned to Seiko, that same spirit carried over. His chronographs looked like machines already in motion, futuristic yet practical. They proved to me that watches can be both daring and functional, and that design has room for boldness as well as restraint.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche reminded me of discipline. He carried the spirit of the 911 into Porsche Design watches with such clarity that nothing felt lost in translation. His language was precise and uncompromising, and it still speaks with strength today.

An early 911 by Ferdinand A “Butzi” Porsche (Source: Porsche)

The watches these people created remain markers for me. Ando’s Octo Finissimo, Newson’s Ikepod, the Zenith x USM, Giugiaro’s Seiko Chronos. They are cool not because they follow fashion but because they carry conviction. That quiet charm born of intent is what I want for Hitori too.

All of these voices overlap in me. I do not keep them apart. The silence of Lee, the light of Ando, the disruption of Koolhaas, the proportion of Le Corbusier, the serenity of Ai Yoshida, the flair of Giugiaro, the industrial touch of Newson and Schärer, the clarity of Porsche. They come together whenever I sit with a sketchbook, refining a case or a dial. The road is never straight, but these figures guide me as I walk.

A Porsche Design Chronograph 1 Limited Edition (Source: Monochrome)

They have taught me to infuse the essence of functional artistic objects into the watches of Hitori. Not just as machines ticking away on the wrist, but as sculptures in their own right. From the Habuka collection to the higher echelons of the Hitori stable, me and my team never stop pondering how to bring in cool factors and beautiful craftsmanship. Every watch is both a tool and a sculpture, both functional and emotional, carrying forward what we have learned from these giants while shaping our own way.

I spend much of my time revisiting these figures in thought, not to imitate them but to listen. Their works move me, and I believe they move many others who search for the same marriage of art and function. To reinterpret their paths while carving my own has been the most fascinating part of my journey. And I hope Hitori can also move those who love objects made with devotion, restraint, and spirit.

For me a watch has never only been about telling time. It is a journal of philosophy, carried in steel and glass, touched by silence and light. That is what I hope Hitori can offer — a way to live daily with the voices of those who shaped me.—

Origin Stories, No. 05