What makes Japanese design so inescapably Japanese? Usually people point to the extraordinariy clean minimalism that so many Japanese designers have mastered—from Naoto Fukasawa to SANAA. Less talked about is the Japanese penchant for devoting fanatical attention to even the smallest things—from a ramen spoon with a perfectly fitted spoon holder to a...dentist's office.

That sort of hyper focus is really what lies behind all exceptional design; it Japan, it's a cultural more. No wonder then that, per capita, they have better architects than any place in the world. Can you imagine a dentist, in any other country, commmissioning an office as beautiful as this one, by Dai Nagasaka, founder of Mega 71:

[What We Do Is Secret, via Dezain]